{"id":902277,"date":"2026-05-27T03:30:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T03:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/902277\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T03:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T03:30:13","slug":"rich-rodriguez-admits-leaving-west-virginia-for-michigan-was-a-mistake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/902277\/","title":{"rendered":"Rich Rodriguez admits leaving West Virginia for Michigan was ‘a mistake’"},"content":{"rendered":"

In December 2007, Rich Rodriguez<\/a> told his West Virginia<\/a> players he was leaving for Michigan<\/a>. He got a call to replace Lloyd Carr as the Wolverines\u2019 head coach after three straight 10-win seasons in Morgantown.<\/p>\n

It was a career-defining moment for Rodriguez. But speaking with Adam Breneman, he called it a \u201cmistake\u201d to go to Michigan.<\/p>\n

Still, Rodriguez had some fond memories of his time in Ann Arbor, including lifelong friends he and his family made during their three years in the city. He also learned important lessons as he headed to Arizona<\/a> and Jacksonville State<\/a> before returning to WVU in 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I kind of learned is that I probably didn\u2019t evaluate what we had at West Virginia as well,\u201d Rodriguez said on Next Up with Adam Breneman<\/a>. \u201cWas it a mistake going there? Yeah. It\u2019s easy to say that now. But I also learned a lot from coaching at Michigan. My kids made their best friends to this day, they made from living up there. I made some great friends that I still have to this day. They\u2019ve got, obviously, a name brand that is pretty special to coach at.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would never take another job without visiting it, probably. Because if I would\u2019ve visited there, I would\u2019ve realized we had some better stuff here, like in the weight room, than they had. At the same time, I also learned make the right hires, choose the right things, you\u2019ve got to still be yourself\u00a0\u2013 which I did up there and maybe it surprised them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rich Rodriguez: \u2018Imagine if that would\u2019ve happened today\u2019<\/p>\n

Upon his arrival, Rich Rodriguez recalled hearing about how he wasn\u2019t a \u201cMichigan Man\u201d considering he\u2019s a West Virginia native and a WVU alumnus. He also joked about what it would be like if he made the move in the modern era with NIL<\/a> and the transfer portal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like, \u2018You\u2019re not a Michigan man,’\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cWell, Bo [Schembechler] wasn\u2019t either. But as soon as they hired me, I said I\u2019m a Michigan man now.<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine if that would\u2019ve happened today. Somebody asked me, what would\u2019ve happened if that transition would\u2019ve happened today? I\u2019m thinking there would\u2019ve been maybe a few players that I bought to come to Michigan because I\u2019d have had enough money to buy them and have them come there. That was just an interesting time in my journey. I should say that.\u201d<\/p>\n

All told, across his three seasons at Michigan, Rodriguez had a 15-22 overall record and a 6-18 mark in Big Ten play from 2008-10. The Wolverines also made a Gator Bowl appearance in 2010, but Rodriguez also noted the program reached the Sugar Bowl in 2011.<\/p>\n

While Rodriguez didn\u2019t want to get caught up in \u201cwhat-ifs,\u201d he recalled that players he recruited made up most of that roster. Michigan athletics director Bill Martin also retired in 2010 before Rodriguez\u2019s departure. As he looked back, he suggested another year could have been in the cards if Martin had stayed on board.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to say it was a perfect storm of things that could go wrong, went wrong in a hurry,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cI still feel, as tough as it was, had we had a chance to maybe finish it out \u2013 because the third year, we got better and got in the bowl game, then the fourth year when we weren\u2019t there, they got to the Sugar Bowl and all the guys that were making plays and stuff are the guys we recruited, so that was hard to watch.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there was a lot of really good people there. The athletic director who hired me, Bill Martin, was a great guy. I\u2019d like to think if he had not retired, I would\u2019ve still been there and had a chance to get it going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In December 2007, Rich Rodriguez told his West Virginia players he was leaving for Michigan. He got a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":902278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,49,48,22043],"class_list":["post-902277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-rich-rodriguez"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116644428112502004","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/902278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}