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Alabama, Rodriguez Appear Close To Decision
Pat Forde, ESPN.com college football and basketball columnist, reported on Friday’s “The Dan Patrick Show” on ESPN Radio that West Virginia University football coach Rich Rodriguez will receive an offer from the University of Alabama Saturday night to become the Crimson Tide’s next head coach. That offer will apparently be made after WVU’s regular season finale against Rutgers.
Forde’s revelation follows other media reports in the past few days which indicate that Alabama has now centered its attention on Rodriguez, after first approaching and then being spurned by current Miami Dolphin coach Nick Saban and current South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier.
Reportedly, Tide officials are ready to offer Rodriguez a guaranteed, seven-year contract worth over $3 million per year. The 43-year-old Rodriguez made $1.1 million last year at WVU, his fifth as the head coach of his alma mater. A native of Grant Town, W.Va., and a 1985 graduate of West Virginia University, Rodriguez signed a new seven-year contract with WVU this past summer calling for him to receive a guaranteed salary of $900,000 per year plus bonuses, and that guaranteed salary would increase by $50,000 each year over the life of the contract. There are also a variety of bonuses available, including an additional $75,000 for a Big East regular season title, $75,000 for a BCS bowl appearance, $25,000 for a non-BCS bowl appearance, $150,000 for a national championship and $10,000 for satisfactory evaluation of the team’s academic achievement, as well as various other incentives.
Rodriguez’s current contract at WVU also includes a hefty buy-out clause. If either the University or Rodriguez would terminate the contract prior to Aug. 31, 2007, the buy-out would be $2 million. That buy-out decreases to $1.5 million after Aug. 31, 2007.
Despite that buyout, several sources within the West Virginia athletic department have indicated that Rodriguez has said he is ready to accept the Alabama job, if offered, and that he’s already talking to members of his staff about accompanying him to Tuscaloosa.
To this point, most of the negotiations between Rodriguez and Alabama have apparently been done between agents and other third parties, so it does not appear that Rich has sat down with Alabama athletic director Mal Moore and reached a definite agreement. But all signs indicate negotiations are moving in that direction. There is time for either side to change their mind, but to this point, it appears likely that Rodriguez will become the next head coach at Alabama. An official announcement could come as early as Sunday or Monday.
If indeed Rodriguez does depart WVU, the Mountaineers will then quickly have to go into their own search mode, looking for a new head coach. Already the names of candidates are swirling; current LSU offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher, who is a native of Clarksburg; current WVU assistants Jeff Casteel, Calvin Magee, Bill Stewart and Rick Trickett, former Mountaineer assistants/players Duke Henshaw, Terry Bowden, Doc Holliday, Steven Dunlap and Bill Legg are some of the names mentioned who have West Virginia ties, but of course, there also figure to be candidates without ties to the state.
If West Virginia winds up searching for a new football coach, it appears that Mountaineer officials don’t want to make a rush to judgment. WVU officials have admitted that in the men’s basketball coaching search after Gale Catlett’s retirement in 2002, they pulled the trigger too quickly on Dan Dakich after being turned down by Bobby Huggins. Obviously Dakich’s here-today, gone-tomorrow act left many at WVU shaken, and even though John Beilein’s hire turned the potentially disastrous situation into a rose, the lasting impression on West Virginia officials is they don’t want to rush into another decision which is so important on so many different levels for the Mountaineer athletic department.
