Rich Rodriguez on Recruiting in 2025: “I’m Competing With Cash, Not Culture”
In a dimly lit media room deep inside WVU athletic complex, Coach Rich Rodriguez leans forward at the podium, his voice sharp, eyes wearied by the week’s recruiting chaos. “Let’s be real,” he says to the small cluster of beat reporters, “I’m competing with cash, not culture.”
It’s a statement that slices through the PR gloss of modern college football. In 2025, the sport has fully embraced the Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) era, but at programs like WVU, Rodriguez finds himself playing a different game than the Alabamas and Ohio States of the world.
“Back in the day, you sold a kid on your offensive scheme, the weight room, the family atmosphere,” Rodriguez continues, tapping his fingers on the table. “Now? I’m losing kids to schools with seven-figure collectives before I even finish the pitch.”
Rodriguez, the former West Virginia and New WVU coach known for his fast-paced spread offense and fiery sideline demeanor, is now facing a recruiting battlefield where culture, tradition, and even playing time are often secondary to direct financial incentive. And he’s not alone. Coaches across the Group of Five and lower-tier Power Five programs whisper what Rich is now shouting publicly: the NIL system, once intended to empower athletes, has mutated into an unregulated bidding war.
“Look, I’m not mad at the kids,” he adds. “If someone offers you $300,000 to go play third-string somewhere else, you take it. That’s life-changing money. But don’t call it recruiting anymore. It’s a marketplace.”
Rodriguez has watched in frustration as promising prospects — kids who’d buy into his system, embrace his hard-nosed coaching, and help build something real — disappear days before signing, lured by a late-night call from a “collective representative” promising cars, condos, and endorsement deals.
“They tell us to adapt,” he says, shaking his head. “How? We don’t have a Fortune 500 company backing us. We’ve got a local barbecue joint and a booster who owns three tire stores.”
Despite the odds, Rodriguez hasn’t stopped fighting. He’s doubled down on scouting under-the-radar players — gritty JUCO transfers, multi-sport athletes, late bloomers — who see Jacksonville State not as a launchpad for quick money but as a legitimate football home.
“You find the ones who still love ball,” he says, more quietly now. “That’s how we win.”
But there’s an unmistakable fatigue in his voice, a sense of erosion. The old guard, the coaches who built programs on vision and grind, are watching the ground shift beneath their feet. And Rodriguez, as defiant as ever, is left balancing a ledger he was never meant to manage.
“Culture still matters,” he says finally, standing. “But these days, culture doesn’t cut a check.”
The room is silent as he leaves, the click of his boots echoing against cinderblock walls — a sound swallowed, perhaps, by the roar of a sport racing toward something unrecognizable.
