Mar 12, 2025
West Virginia quarterbacks coach Rhett Rodriguez is following in the footsteps of his father, Mountaineer football coach Rich Rodriguez. (Photo by Derek Redd)
MORGANTOWN — To say that WVU football – and the philosophies of head coach Rich Rodriguez – are ingrained in his son Rhett would be an understatement.
There’s a photo of Rhett Rodriguez as a young child, sitting on the knee of former WVU quarterback Rasheed Marshall when Marshall led the Mountaineers. When Rhett Rodriguez played quarterback in high school, he would suggest strategies to his coach from his dad’s playbook.
“I probably drove him crazy with all those things, like, ‘you know, we do this play, can we put that in?’” Rhett Rodriguez remembered with a smile. “He was like, ‘Rhett, you’ll get there eventually.’”
That he has, now serving as his dad’s quarterback coach at WVU. And both father and son say that, if you’re looking for a coach to best deliver the message of how Rich Rodriguez’s offense operates, who’s a better messenger than the person who grew up with it?
“I’ve been around our football programs, all the places we’ve been to,” Rhett Rodriguez said. “So sometimes I know what he’s looking for and I’m able to kind of read between the lines of the message he’s trying to share.”
While Rhett Rodriguez ended up in coaching, it wasn’t where he started out of college. He began his professional life in the financial field, at Northern Trust in Tempe, Arizona. There, he developed exchange strategies and fund trading.
Even as he found success in the financial world, his dad would poke at him, asking if that was what he really wanted to do, or if he would rather coach. Rhett Rodriguez was able to work a hybrid schedule and still fly to Jacksonville State where his dad was last head coach to observe.
Finally, father was able to get son to admit that, while he was having fun in the financial world, he wasn’t having as much fun as he would as a coach.
“Well, I said, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be in this,” Rich Rodriguez said. “But you have one advantage. You’ve kind of got some connections. You have better connections than when I started.”
Rhett Rodriguez spent last season at Jacksonville State as an offensive analyst before Rich Rodriguez hired him as quarterbacks coach upon their return to Morgantown. While his coaching resume is short, he has experience as a Football Bowl Subdivision quarterback at two schools – Arizona and Louisiana-Monroe.
What Rhett Rodriguez has found is that his experience in the business world has prepared him for many of the aspects of college football. The new horizons of name, image and likeness have bolstered the business side of the sport, and the younger Rodriguez has a good base of experience there.
It also has helped in recruiting. Rhett Rodriguez said that part of his job at Northern Trust was to cold-call financial advisors to convince them to use his company’s products. After that experience, he said, wooing football recruits isn’t so tough.
“That helped translate over to where having a phone call with an 18-year-old recruit is a lot easier than with someone who has been a financial advisor in a suit for 30 years,” he said.
Rich Rodriguez said there are several benefits to having his son as his quarterback coach, most importantly his demeanor. The elder Rodriguez has joked several times during spring practice that it’s better that Rhett Rodriguez is the coach talking to the quarterback in-game into the QB’s earpiece. Rich Rodriguez might spend too much time yelling about a mistake. Rhett Rodriguez has the calm to make sure the right play gets called in.
“My dad kind of has to have a global view,” Rhett Rodriguez said. “He’s not just looking at the quarterback. He’s looking at the offensive line and the defense, too. I have my pure focus on getting the quarterback ready to go.
“I think also having that calm demeanor, helping the quarterbacks out, my dad can focus on calling the plays and I can be the one communicating that to the quarterback,” he said.
Rich Rodriguez said he couldn’t be prouder of his son, how he has grown so quickly as a coach. And feels Rhett Rodriguez will only get better.
“People say, well, you’re biased because he’s your son,” Rich Rodriguez said. “You’re damn right. But I think if there’s anybody in the country who knows the system better than everybody else, it would be him. I don’t know if he knows it better than me, but he’s right there with it.”
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