MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The 2.0 version of the 2.0 tenure for WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez continues Saturday with a key benchmark in the building of his roster. The Mountaineers will take the field for the first of 15 spring practices.
For the second consecutive season, the bulk of the West Virginia roster has been turned over. After fielding a senior class with over 40 players in the 2025 season, just 31 players return to this year’s roster. Those players combined to make 33 starts last fall.
“There’s not a lot of returning starters, of course. We feel comfortable with what we have and where our program is at right now,” Rodriguez said.
“There’s so much more competition, true competition at every position. That’s something all coaches want to have. I think we truly have that from a player standpoint. We brought that in with some of the transfers that we got in and a really good high school freshman class that we brought in. And a couple of junior college guys we signed back in December I think are really going to be able to help us as well.”
West Virginia is coming off a 4-8 season in 2025, the worst season for the program in a dozen years. Hired in mid-December of 2024, Rodriguez quickly assembled a large class of one-year players from the transfer portal.
“A year ago, it was everything. We knew it was going to be kind of hectic. I thought we would be a little deeper than what we were, but we weren’t as deep as we wanted to be. The injury part probably exposed that a little bit. Until we start practicing, I am never sure. But I think we have a better football team certainly now than we did a year ago at this time.”
Despite having just six players that started a game for West Virginia in 2025 back for this fall, Rodriguez believes the departed seniors made important contributions in building a foundation for the program.
“There’s different challenges now. You still have to establish the culture. We took so many transfer guys last year. I think you kind of had to because of where we were at and we were late in the process. This year, we intentionally took a lot more high school guys. We don’t have 40-some seniors who are one-and-done. We’ve got 21 or 22 seniors. Everybody else are guys we want to have now and we want to keep and finish their careers here. I think we are able to build it the way we want to. We should get better every year.
“The seniors, even the six-month guys we had last year helped us establish that [culture] for this year. There’s enough returning players that have been in our program for the last 12 months that are helping us move forward with it too. It wasn’t all bad. It was more bad than good. But it wasn’t all bad.”
With a larger high school and junior college recruiting class in place for the 2026 season, Rodriguez is hopeful his team can avoid another significant shuffling of players in and out by signing players to multi-year agreements.
“Going forward, that’s always going to be the first thing after the season, the retention. We don’t have guys on like four-year contracts like the NFL. We’ve got guys, a lot of them are one year. We are trying to get more on two-year. I wouldn’t mind getting some guys on three-year contracts. All that is kind of an ongoing process that we are dealing with.”
One of the most notable transfer portal acquisitions this offseason is former Oklahoma quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr. He played in nine games over the course of two seasons with the Sooners. Hawkins Jr. will compete with returning signal callers Scotty Fox Jr. and Max Brown. Fox Jr. accounted for ten total touchdowns in ten games (six starts) last year as a true freshman.
“Obviously we had some guys that were at Oklahoma that saw [Hawkins Jr.] in person, who he was as an athlete and who he was as a person. We wanted somebody to come in and compete with Scotty and Max for the job, somebody we thought had the skill set to be special. Mike has that and he has shown that so far. He is a smart guy. It is really important to him and he works hard.”
Two starters return on West Virginia’s offensive line with Nick Krahe [12 starts] and Landon Livingston [11 starts] in place to lead the group.
“Landon has played. Nick Krahe has played. And Malik Agbo has played a little bit. Some of those guys have played. And some of the guys that are young guys behind them I think have gotten better. We signed a really good freshman class. And we’ve got some transfers on the O-line that we are so much deeper now with guys that have experience playing. Last year, we got some transfers in but they didn’t have a whole lot of experience as a starting offensive lineman.”
A pair of Jacksonville State transfers who played for Rodriguez at Jacksonville State joined the Mountaineers this offseason. Both were starters for the Gamecocks last fall.
“Bubba Grayson and Cam Griffith know the system and they know the offense. They also know a lot of the techniques and things that Coach [Rick] Trickett installs. That helps. They are helping teach the guys, ‘Hey, this is what he wants here and this is what he wants there’. They are great guys. They are great program guys.”
The most notable addition to the Mountaineer coaching staff comes with the return of Preston County native and Glenville State College graduate Rick Trickett. Trickett was the architect of WVU’s Sugar Bowl champion offensive line in Rodriguez’s first tenure at WVU. His son, Chance, is also joining the staff as the Director of Player Evaluation.
“Why I hired Chance is because I wanted some NFL scouting experience. He’s done it for 12 years. The system and how they go about scouting and evaluating prospects and all that, we’re not just evaluating high school guys, we are evaluating other college prospects and guys that have gone in the portal. Chance’s experience has already helped.
“Rick, we’ve worked together a lot. I think he is the preeminent offensive line coach in college football and has been for a long, long time. He knows the system and he knows how to get the best out of his players. It has been really good to have him. Of course, [Senior Offensive Assistant] Travis is on the staff and is doing a great job as well.”
No schedule for spring practices has been announced, but Rodriguez did confirm that a “Spring Festival” has been set for Saturday, April 18.