MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Rich Rodriguez coined the phrase hard edge to reference a maximum level of physical toughness and strain he’s aspired his teams to play with over the years.
After Rodriguez was hired in December 2024 for his second stint as West Virginia football coach, he talked at length numerous times about the Mountaineers to develop a hard edge that would in essence be the fabric of the program.
Seven games into the 2025 season, it’s apparent West Virginia (2-5, 0-4 Big 12) is not all the way there and perhaps not particularly close.
“You have to have something you’re going to build your program around and it has to be the message from Day 1 until the end of the thing,” Rodriguez said. “My expectation was probably higher or thought it would happen faster than it did. Maybe after the Pitt game we thought it was there, but it really wasn’t. It’s there to some degree, but not ingrained in everything in the program like it needs to be. I’m not just talking about hard edge. When it’s truly the culture that we want, need and will have, you won’t have one player loafing or one player taking a play off or one player being soft at anytime.”
In last Saturday’s 45-13 loss at Central Florida, the Mountaineers were limited to a season-low 210 total yards and surrendered a season-high 578, while allowing the Knights to score 31 unanswered second-half points.
A lack of execution on both sides of the ball was again particularly problematic for WVU, which was largely overpowered up front and unable to hang in against a Knights’ team that also entered the matchup winless over its first three Big 12 games.
While the Mountaineers’ 14-7 halftime deficit was the smallest one they’ve faced to date in Big 12 play, there were few, if any, positives to leave Orlando with, including the team’s effort level, according to Rodriguez.
“That’s probably the most disappointing thing that we have to get corrected as coaches — how we played in that game effort wise and competitiveness wise can’t ever happen again,” he said. “But my expectation was we could teach it better and we haven’t. We’ve failed as coaches to get that.”
Within Big 12 play, the Mountaineers’ four losses are by an average of nearly 28 points and they’ve let to lead in any of those games, while managing a total of only 20 points and two touchdowns in the first half.
Against conference competition, the 15.3 points per game WVU averages is 16th among 16 Big 12 teams, as are its 292.5 yards gained and 503.5 yards allowed on average. Surrendering an average of 43 points, the Mountaineers are second-to-last in that category.
With a mere 441 passing yards in conference play, West Virginia is nearly 250 behind the next closest Big 12 team and exactly 700 back of its next opponent in TCU, whose quarterback Josh Hoover has 2,124 yards through the air in seven games — more than 1,000 passing yards more than what the Mountaineers have as a team (1,111).
Rodriguez admits he’s still working on establishing culture, which directly correlates to the hard edge philosophy in his system.
“We still have a ways to go,” Rodriguez said. “You think you have it. I thought we were further than that and unfortunately I haven’t done a good enough job to get that to where we want to.”
Despite a lack of competitiveness against league foes, Rodriguez hasn’t given up hope of a turnaround, though that’s increasingly looking less likely to occur in 2025.
“I don’t think it’s as far off as it’s looked like. There’s a lot of things,” Rodriguez said. “We’re not going to go through the whole thing here. Trust me, I am evaluating anything and everything to do with our football program starting with myself, the staff and then the players and everything else that we need to do to have success. I’m still convinced we’re going to win big and have great success.
“It’s not happening as fast as I want for sure. We’re putting the pieces together. It’s just painfully obvious that it’s going to take us a little longer. Some of it is bad luck and some of it is missed evaluations and some of it simply we have to be able to adapt a little bit quicker to certain situations, but there’s not anything that goes by that I don’t question. You guys are questioning, which is fair. That’s what you should do. Our fans are frustrated. So am I. If this was my first year as a head coach, I’d be like, ‘oh gosh, what’s the answer?’ I know the answers. Just not able to fix it is as quick as we want to sometimes.”