FanHouse West Virginia Football

I'm sure Michigan and WVU fans are probably relieved that this is over, but I'm terribly disappointed.

West Virginia University says ex-football coach Rich Rodriguez has agreed to pay a $4 million buyout clause after breaking his contract.

That would settle WVU's lawsuit that had been set for trial this fall. WVU attorney Tom Flaherty says the tentative agreement was reached late Tuesday night.

The past few months have been a fun time to watch -- as long as you are on the outside. The depositions being taken then released to the public for mocking. Rodriguez's lawyer equating the buyout to "slavery" even as Rodriguez's present contract with Michigan just happens to have a $4 million buyout. Good stuff.

FanHouse never even got a chance to mock discuss the deposition of outgoing WVU President Mike Garrison talking about "Product Rodriguez." Instead it ends with a whimper. Not all depositions taken. The chance for more legal filings to accuse each other of broken promises, misused cell phones, shredded documents, and good vitriol dressed in legalese.

It remains to be seen if Rodriguez is paying the money himself or if Michigan and/or a wealthy donor is ponying up the money to end this before training camp opens in Ann Arbor.

UPDATE: It appears that Michigan will pay at least part of the money owed.

Sources today said Rodriguez will pay $1.5 million over a three-year span that begins in two-and-a-half years, with $500,000 due at the end of each 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Michigan will pay $2.5 million immediately, and additionally is expected to pick up Mr. Rodriguez's legal fees.

Fashion is all the rage in college football these days. Well, actually the changing of uniform designs for sales and marketing purposes isn't anything new at all. From the incredibly ugly Orange arm Florida and Va. Tech uniforms to the 230 million combination Oregon uniforms, schools are producing new uniforms on an almost yearly basis. Most likely for the purpose of selling more jerseys. But in some cases, like Cal, for a visual improvement.

The new Nike designs feature bear claw - eque slashes around the neckline along with the Cal Bear Claw logo on the neck. The claw slash look also appears on the side of the pants.

This could have gone so wrong if they would have made the claw slashes more like what a real slash looked like. For some reason I'm thinking Cincinnati Bengals bad here. But the design looks sharp for the most part. I'm not in love with the helmet design, but this is an improvement over the current uniforms.

This should be of particular interest to West Virginia fans, and ostensibly Michigan fans, as the Mountaineer uniforms have followed the Cal design since as far back as I can remember. Maybe it's just the similarities in the school colors that is sticking with me, but West Virginia didn't get gold jerseys until Cal did. Or maybe it's one too many times of walking in front of the TV thinking the Mountaineers were on, only to find out it was Cal. One thing is for sure, these two team should never play each other again! The chance for interceptions would quadruple for any quarterback that isn't color blind.

For those of you that were looking forward to this being the last year that a quarterback named White was running up and down the field on your defense, we've got some bad news for you.

Coley White was among 20-some West Virginia University football recruits who checked in at Puskar Center this weekend for summer workouts.

Yeah, sorry about that. At best, you'll get one year of Jarrett Brown before the younger White will see the field. I know that's not much comfort since Brown is a fair quarterback himself. But that's the reality. Pat White's opinion of his brother might be slightly biased, but if you're just going on size and DNA Coley is almost a mirror image of his older brother.

"He's the best athlete in the family," he said. And he emphasized that he wasn't saying that just to be kind but that's his honest assessment. Coley's statistics as a senior at Daphne High certainly were impressive. He accounted for nearly 2,500 yards in total offense, 1,500 passing and 964 rushing. He led his team to an 11-2 record and a state 6-A runner-up finish.

Not quite as good as his brother's 1,905 rushing and 1,488 passing, but the result was the same. Both finished state 6-A runner-up. Nothing is ever guaranteed, and it would be quite a feet to even match what Pat has accomplished. But the system was made for someone like White (both of them). It doesn't hurt that West Virginia has been recruiting much better talent since Pat started running the offense either. Whether it equals back-to-back Alabama and West Virginia amateur athlete of the year and back-to-back Big East offensive player of the year awards remains to be seen. But it should be fun to watch.

One sure sign the season is just around the corner is the launching of websites to promote players for the Heisman. While Pat White Plays Here doesn't say Heisman anywhere I've looked, White will be on everyone's list of potential candidates for the Heisman. There's an extensive collection of videos covering his career from high school to West Virginia. I wish the video screen was a little bigger, but outside that it's a sharp site full of information on White.

In 62 days or so we'll all be at a game or watching on TV. Between now and then, plenty of Heisman hype machines will get rolling. I'm skeptical as to how much these promotions really help an athlete when it comes to Heisman voting. For a player like White that has put together three solid years at West Virginia, I doubt any voters need to be reminded of him. He doesn't play for a big market team, but he does play in a big market conference. His performances in bowl games has been spectacular. But for White to have a shot at the Heisman, he's going to have to stay healthy and West Virginia can't have more than one loss. Something that hasn't happened either of the last two years.

If you think you know every dirty creative trick schools use to recruit athletes, you may be right. But I'm willing to guess that you don't. I think I learned at an early age about the sneaky ways of recruiting from reading "That's My Story and I'm Sticking To It", by Alex Hawkins.

When Hawkins, then a South Charleston high school senior, was being sought after by football and basketball college coaches, he chose football because it paid more money. "I was offered a farm to sign with the University of Kentucky but I was offered $1,500 a semester, a complete men's wardrobe and a new automobile to play football for coach Rex Enright at South Carolina.

Depending on how you look at it, those days are sadly over. Too bad I couldn't find the bit about the men West Virginia paid to make sure no other coaches talked to Hawkins. Because the South Carolina coaches had to sneak in the back door to make that offer. Undoubtedly, WVU's men were looking for new jobs that fall.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Recruiting always has been and always will be about getting access to the player, and what you can sell them in that time. Despite the NCAA's best efforts to control the contact coaches have with recruits, it seems there's always a loophole.

So when Oregon coaches identified their top 20 prospects for the class of 2005, Gilmore and his staff designed custom comic books starring each recruit as the hero who leads the Ducks to a national title. Because NCAA rules at the time only allowed programs to send letter-sized, black-and-white pages to recruits, Gilmore sent each prospect one page a week. After a few months, the recruit had the full comic book.

The practice of sending a recruit a comic book about themselves was nixed when the NCAA passed a rule that only material that was created by a coach could be sent to recruits. I would not be at all surprised to learn that Oregon offered a spot on the coaching staff to Stan Lee.

Via Sports by Brooks, word out of LSU is that junior wide receiver Trindon Holliday is the fastest college football player...ever. When you consider the speed guys that have come out of college football like Deion Sanders, Willie Gault, Hershel Walker, etc., that's quite a statement!

No doubt, speed kills. But in the world of football, it isn't everything. I would argue that speed on the track is secondary to football speed. It's truly the gifted athlete that has track speed and football speed, like Deion and Hershel. Because then you have a weapon.

The man you see at right is James Jett, former West Virginia and Oakland Raider wide receiver. If the name doesn't ring a bell, don't feel bad. He was never an all-pro caliber wide receiver. But he was the definition of fast. He was a member of the 1992 USA 4 x 100 gold medal relay team, and actually beat out Carl Lewis at the trials while he was still playing for West Virginia. Don't get me wrong, he was a good wide receiver. But he was never great.

Back to Holliday. He might be the fastest college football player ever. But at the end of the day it doesn't really mean anything. Much like Spinal Tap being the worlds loudest rock band, they still never sold any records. For all his speed, Holiday really hasn't done anything on the field. Particularly when you look at his stats as a receiver. And that's how he should be judged. But you go ahead and have that "fastest college football player ever" plaque made, LSU. I'll be looking for it on Ebay real soon.

Former West Virginia and College Football Hall of Fame coach, Don Nehlen is recovering from triple bypass surgery.

Nehlen's son-in-law, former NFL quarterback Jeff Hostetler, said Nehlen underwent surgery Tuesday following routine testing and that his recovery was going well.

Nehlen always has been and always will be a very important figure to me. Besides being the coach at my school, he also spent a great deal of time recruiting kids from my high school not named John Radcliff. He was also the guest speaker at our football banquet my senior year. Nehlen was and is a kind man that is as real talking to you one on one as he is being interviewed in front of a national audience. Sadly, he's what we consider a throw back these days.

As much as any coach from the early years of the Big East conference, Don Nehlen was an influential force in it's formation. He lobbied hard for the inclusion of a Virginia Tech program that didn't have a winning season in Frank Beamer's first six seasons. Unlike most, he could see that it was a program just waiting to explode if it could get into a major conference. Beamer and company didn't disappoint. Often at Nehlen's expense.

He had the same kind of vision about West Virginia. Before coming to Morgantown, Nehlen was an assistant under Bo Schembechler at Michigan. And although Schembechler thought a lot of Nehlen, he was less that willing to encourage his assistant to take the Mountaineer job.

At some point in all our lives, someone tells us not to do something because it won't end up the way we want it to. And of course we do it anyway just to prove them wrong. And West Virginia isn't such a bad place to be anymore because of it.

I never intended this piece to sound like a eulogy, and I hope it doesn't come across that way. But the man did incredible things building up the West Virginia program, and I can't not salute his accomplishments when I speak about him. He built the foundation that Rich Rodriguez was able to take to a national level. But no matter where the Mountaineers go from here, it's all because of Don Nehlen and his vision. Get well soon coach!

Well, this will cause some tremors in college sports over the next couple of years. Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese has announced that he will retire in June 2009.

"I am stepping down at this point because I believe it is the right time," added Tranghese. "The Conference is in great shape and it will give my successor the best opportunity to be successful."

Tranghese will have been the Big East Commissioner for 19 years when he steps down. He was the first employee of the Big East conference, the second Big East commissioner.

He was also the force that managed to keep the conference intact and a full member of the BCS after Miami, Boston College and Virginia Tech left for the ACC. He prevented the conference from splitting into two conferences -- football schools and basketball schools -- by refusing to choose one over the other.

The football schools needed him because he had the connections and relationships with the other conferences and their commissioners to stay in the BCS. His expansion of the conference into 8 basketball schools (this includes Notre Dame) and 8 football schools. Has surprisingly worked to this point.

For a team that has aspirations of a national title, West Virginia football players sure do spend a lot of time in trouble these days. Fact is, if this keeps up they will win a title. But it's not the one Mountaineer fans are hoping for.

The latest in a line of troubled Mountaineers is Charles Pugh. The senior safety is under investigation for allegedly stealing a credit card and making fraudulent purchases.

Pugh and an unidentified woman allegedly found a set of car keys at the university's student union center last Tuesday and used the remote control "panic button'' on the keychain to locate the car in a parking lot. There, they allegedly took the credit card and perhaps other items, then used the card at several locations.

As of Monday afternoon there had been no arrests made, but Stewart had been made aware that an investigation was ongoing and was attempting to learn more. Stewart was unavailable for comment Monday night.

Yup, coach Stewart has to be wondering just what the heck is going on around here. Since the Fiesta Bowl win over Oklahoma, the Mountaineer off season has been highlighted by one arrest after another. He also has to be wondering if he is going to be able to field enough defensive backs to run the 3-3-5 defense this year. The Mountaineers lost two of the starting safeties to graduation, as well as both starting corner backs.

While Pugh hasn't been a major contributor for West Virginia, he was expected to fill one of the two vacant safety positions on this years team. The good news for West Virginia is that Quinton Andrews, the only other safety with starting experience, is not part of the investigation as was originally believed.

I'm talking about the West Virginia linebacker who was dismissed from the team in February after being charged with possession and intent to distribute marijuana. You didn't think I meant that other John Holmes?

At the time, the charges against Holmes and two other Mountaineer players were felony charges. All three were immediately dismissed from the team. Since then one player has pleaded not guilty and awaits a trial in late July. Another player plea bargained to misdemeanor possession and conspiracy to possess marijuana. He received two years probation.

Holmes had his charges reduced to misdemeanor possession. Of the three, only Holmes may be allowed back on the team.

"It was a case of being with the wrong people at the wrong time," [West Virginia Head Coach Bill] Stewart said of Holmes' involvement in the matter. "He's paid a high price for it, an expensive price. It's come as a high cost to him."

Stewart isn't saying it's a done deal. Holmes has to meet all requirements leading up to training camp in August he will be allowed back. Holmes had no prior incidents with the law. The other two players, however, were given "no chance" of returning to the team.

Of the three, Holmes was the only one to play in all 13 games. That's just a coincidence