MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — When Wren Baker settled on Rich Rodriguez as head football coach, it was largely viewed as the most bold of a lengthy list of notable moves made by West Virginia’s Director of Athletics in his time on the job, which began in December 2022.
Eight months later, with Rodriguez one week away from starting his second tenure as the Mountaineers’ head coach, Baker admits he isn’t entirely sure what to expect from WVU in 2025.
The Mountaineers have more than 70 new players, an entirely new coaching staff and are part of what is generally an unpredictable Big 12 Conference that this year opted against an official preseason poll after Arizona State won the league in 2024 despite being chosen last among 16 teams.
“You can go back in my history and I don’t think I’ve ever put an expectation out there in terms of wins and losses, especially for a first-year head coach,” Baker said. “You’re looking for the coach to establish culture, build the foundation and when you get to the end of Year 1, you want to feel like you have momentum going into Year 2. It’s been fun to work with coach Rodriguez. It’s been fun to watch him. He’s very calculated in just about everything he does with this team. I’m confident in where we’re going. I wish I could say I know where we’re at right now, but with 75 new players, I don’t know that anybody does. That’s probably a record number of new players.”
From a national perspective, expectations are rather mundane. The Mountaineers are not ranked or receiving votes in either national poll and have a season win total projection that hovers around 5, according to oddsmakers.
Considering Arizona State, Kansas State, Iowa State and Texas Tech start the season ranked anywhere between 11 and 22 in The Associated Press Top 25, and BYU, Utah and Baylor are the top teams in a receiving votes category TCU and Colorado are also part of, it’s fair to reason the Mountaineers would be in the bottom half of a Big 12 Preseason Poll were there one.
Yet nobody knows exactly what this version of West Virginia may or may not be capable of, perhaps adding to the intrigue as the season nears its start.
“The job of our coaching staff to very quickly analyze each of their skill sets, acclimate them to the culture and fit those pieces together that allows you to have success has been an awfully big job, and they’ve worked really hard at it,” Baker said. “The cars in this [Milan Puskar Team Center] lot are here at daylight and here at dark, and I drive by here all the time. I don’t know that I have an expectation of anything other than we’re establishing culture, that the young men in our program represent us the way we want to be represented and that they play hard and care about WVU. At the end of the year, we want to have something to build on and continue to create momentum.”
Before fielding questions from the media Friday, Baker noted West Virginia had sold 33,208 season tickets as of that morning — an increase of about 5,000 from last year’s total. That’s an indication that while Rodriguez left Morgantown in messy fashion following the 2007 regular season, there is anticipation and excitement regarding his return.
“That shows a lot of enthusiasm with our fans,” Baker said. “The most exciting part, we have over 9,500 new season ticket holders. A very impressive number. It’ll be our job to keep those people on board and continue to grow that number.”
Baker knows excitement will only grow around the program if West Virginia can successful navigate a non-conference schedule that does not feature more than one Power Conference opponent — something the Mountaineers have not had with a full non-league slate since 2017.
After next week’s season opener against Robert Morris of the FCS, the Mountaineers travel to Ohio before welcoming Pitt for the Backyard Brawl.
“Regardless of it being coach’s second tenure here or how or why the first tenure ended and how people feel about it, the evaluation for me is still the same,” Baker said. “Do we feel like we’re laying a foundation, that the coach is building a culture and we have something to build on for the future? I’m pretty good at shutting out the outside, because I always know that’s temporary. I’ve done this a number of years. All week leading up to a game, people can be ready to fire your coach, and you go out and beat a top 10 team, and people want to extend the coach. In leadership, you have to shut all that out and keep your evaluation process the same. I’ve always been pretty good at being able to do that.”
Since he believes the evaluation of Rodriguez must extend well beyond wins and losses, Baker will utilize a number of other factors to form one.
Early returns have been positive there.
“It’s a variety of things. It’s MAC [Mountaineer Athletic Club] donations, ticket sales, caravan attendees, social media impressions, the people that I talk to when I’m out and about,” he said. “One of the package delivery companies delivered something to my house the other day, recognized the name and asked my wife if it was our house. He was so excited and said I haven’t donated to the MAC or gotten season tickets ever, and I got my season ticket this year. It’s big data that we collect and are constantly assessing, but it’s also the feel as you’re out and about and talk to people. It’s all of those things that you’re kind of assessing.”