Wide receiver Preston Fox was welcomed back to West Virginia with open arms.
After initially announcing his retirement in early January, the redshirt senior with one season of eligibility remaining decided that he wasn’t quite done with the game. So, he contacted head coach Rich Rodriguez with the intent of returning to play out his final season with the Mountaineers.
It didn’t take much to make the reunion a reality.
“He's a good football player; I think all his teammates love him and it's good to have him. He's a guy that can help us, I think, in all our receiving positions because he's a smart guy,” Rodriguez said.
Fox has been working with the team since that point and his experience over his career makes him a candidate to potentially play all over the field at the four different wide receiver positions.
“I think he’s going to be able to learn them all, so he’ll probably play both inside and outside,” Rodriguez said.
A former walk-on who earned a scholarship over the course of his career, Fox is somebody that wide receivers coach Ryan Garrett was already aware of when he was hired for the position. That is in large part because of his meetings with strength and conditioning coach Mike Joseph as well as those receivers in the program.
“Everybody told me how hard he worked. He was a great guy,” Garrett said.
The two then spoke when Garrett first arrived but Fox had already made his decision on hanging up his cleats before his eventual return. That alone shows his passion for the game.
“I think he got in the workforce and realized this football thing’s pretty good. And he’s a guy that loves football. He didn’t want to be away from it. But I’m excited to have him back,” Garrett said.
And it wasn’t just Garrett either as the rest of the wide receiver room was excited to see him back with the team. It was something that Garrett paid close attention to after the Morgantown native rejoined the team and there was nothing but genuine excitement from everybody involved.
“And not just in the receiver room, through the whole team. So, that showed me a lot,” Garrett said.
Now, the plan is to get Fox up to speed in a new offense, but the Mountaineers are excited to have another option to sort through that has already made an impact in Morgantown.
“He’s playing a little bit of catch-up, but he has a lot of respect from his teammates, too,” Garrett said.
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