West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez has gotten accustomed to the ebbs and flows of the transfer portal.
That’s because it wasn’t really an option to avoid it when he was over top of the Jacksonville State football program over the last three years.
“We went to a bowl game, won the bowl game and then all of a sudden we had a handful maybe seven, eight players that got moved, went to a power four team just got bought and we knew it was coming,” Rodriguez said on The Triple Option podcast.
The transfer portal is a reality at every level of college sports, but those teams in the group of five deal with many of the larger programs picking apart their roster.
Rodriguez recalled a conversation he had with former Alabama head coach Nick Saban on how difficult it was to keep players if they showed potential with major teams jumping into the mix and recruiting them after a strong season at the group of five level.
“At least we had him for one or two years. That's not the approach you're taking. Like if I can get a guy for one or two years and he moves on, I don't want that to happen. But at least I had him for one or two years,” Rodriguez said.
That leads to those teams then needing to fill out their own rosters by utilizing the transfer portal themselves to rebuild their teams.
Now, that process takes time in order to gel together as teams must acclimate to their new surroundings. It’s a lesson that Rodriguez learned first hand last season with the Gamecocks when his team started slow despite him feeling good about their potential.
However, things rebounded with Jacksonville State winning nine of their final ten games in the regular season on the way to a Conference USA title.
“So I learned that we better speed that process up. And once we got on the roll and those guys got comfortable with the system and they kind of took off,” Rodriguez said.
That has prepared Rodriguez to navigate the transfer portal with the resources that he now has at West Virginia with both the facilities and the support.
The Mountaineers have been aggressive utilizing all options to fill out the roster including the transfer portal, junior college and even high school ranks.
“Get the best players you can get. If they got four years to go, that's great. If they only got one year, well, we'll take them. But we just got to get the best players you can get,” Rodriguez said.
But the one thing that must stay consistent is the culture and holding players to the standard.
----------
• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.
• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.
• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel
• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan, @wesleyshoe
