Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Rich Rodriguez will have a second run as head coach at West Virginia
West Virginia is going back to the past for its football future.
The Mountaineers are getting ready to hire former coach Rich Rodriguez as their next head coach.
Rodriguez was at Jacksonville State, where he was 27-10.
He was 60-26 in his first run at WVU. He was head coach in Morgantown from 2001-07 before leaving for Michigan.
He was also head coach at Arizona.
West Virginia fired Neal Brown after it went 6-6 in the regular season.
Will West Virginia come looking for one of Penn State’s coordinators to be the next head coach in Morgantown?
West Virginia was among the schools that opted to make a head coaching change in the days following the conclusion of the 2024 college football season. Neal Brown was fired by the school after leading the Mountaineers for the past six seasons to a record of 37-35. Two of those losses came against Penn State in the past two seasons, including this year’s season opener. West Virginia wrapped up a 6-6 regular season with a 52-15 dubbing on the road at Texas Tech, leaving the school ready to make a change rather than allow Brown a chance to coach in the upcoming bowl season.
Naturally, that has led to a number of college football writers coming up with a list of potential ideal candidates for the vacancy in Morgantown. Among the names mentioned by CBS Sports writer Tom Fornelli was Penn State offensive coordinator [autotag]Andy Kotelnicki[/autotag]. Kotelnicki is certainly no stranger to having his name floated for potential head coaching opportunities this round on the coaching carousel, and we will likely see his name pop up again before this year’s coaching carousel comes to a full and complete stop.
“Kotelnicki has been coordinating exciting and explosive offenses for years, first under Lance Leipold at Buffalo and Kansas and now not too far down the road from Morgantown at Penn State,” Fornelli wrote on CBSSports.com. “It feels like it’s only a matter of time before he gets a head coaching job. Could West Virginia lure him away from Happy Valley?”
It does feel as though Kotelnicki is on track to become a head coach, and that certainly should not be surprising given the recent trend of Penn State coordinators under James Franklin. A number of coordinators for Franklin have gone on to become head coaches including Joe Moorhead, Ricky Rahne, Brent Pry, Manny Diaz.
Kotelnicki is likely to leave Penn State at some point for a head coaching opportunity, especially if Penn State continues to have success with him calling the plays. Kotelnicki will be locked in on preparing the Penn State offense for a massive test against Oregon in this week’s Big Ten championship game, and the College Football Playoff is on the horizon.
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Two Big 12 teams are now looking for a new head coach
The Big 12 Conference will see a change in two established football programs for next season, as the UCF Knights and West Virginia Mountaineers are now looking for new head coaches.
Gus Malzahn stepped down after four seasons at UCF’s helm, where he guided the Knights to nine wins in each of his first two seasons before going 6-7 in 2023 and 4-8 this past season. He was hired by the Florida State Seminoles to be their new offensive coordinator.
West Virginia fired head coach Neal Brown on Sunday after six seasons and a combined 37-35 record. His firing came fresh off a blowout loss to the Texas Tech Red Raiders to end the regular season. While successful in spurts, Brown’s Mountaineers struggled away from Morgantown, going 13-20 in road games over the past six years.
Next season, the Colorado Buffaloes are set to face WVU in Morgantown but will not play UCF. Colorado defeated the Knights, 48-21, in late September.
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West Virginia Mountaineers offensive lineman Wyatt Milum would be an ideal target for the Kansas City #Chiefs in the 2025 NFL draft.
The Kansas City Chiefs rostered four rookie offensive linemen for this season to solve depth concerns in their front five. The unit achieved mixed results in the Chiefs’ first four games when the rookies and second-year left tackle Wanya Morris saw the field.
Kansas City must continue investing in its offensive line to sustain its budding dynasty.
West Virginia Mountaineers offensive tackle Wyatt Milum would be an ideal target for Chiefs general manager Brett Veach in the second round of the 2025 NFL draft.
He started at right tackle as a freshman and is in the midst of his third season playing left tackle. Milum lacks the traditional arm length measurements to play offensive tackle in the NFL, and his skills project well inside at guard.
Milum didn’t allow a single pressure during West Virginia’s first four games and posted standout performances against Kansas and Pittsburgh in recent weeks. He uses his play strength, controlled footwork, and patient hands to frame blocks well and build a strong technical foundation. Milum rarely suffers fundamental breakdowns in pass protection.
Milum drops his sturdy anchor once defenders engage with him and uses his combative upper body to knock pass rushers off balance. Milum looks for opportunities to torque defenders out of their stances and pancake them. That finishing mentality pops on his film in pass protection and the run game.
Wyatt Milum is a machine pic.twitter.com/FV8C0M06b1
— James Foster (@NoFlagsFilm) October 1, 2024
Milum’s open-field speed and movement skills help him pull and pick off second-level defenders for wide zone or gap runs. He uses his leg drive and motor to dig out defensive ends on inside zone runs and widen the B-gap.
West Virginia goes on the road to challenge 3-2 Oklahoma State at 3:00 p.m. CST this Saturday. The Cowboys lost each of their last two games while the Mountaineers are returning from their off week.
The battle between Herbstreit and Florida State fans rages on
For maybe the first time ever, college football saw Cal fans on social medai trolling Florida State fans about their Week 4 matchup before Cal had even played its Week 3 game against San Diego State.
These are strange times in the ACC, to be sure, but this new conference rivalry may be hard to top. What else would you honestly expect from an undefeated Cal team visiting a winless FSU program?
Sadly, we cannot technically count that as one of pettiest Week 3 moments. Fortunately, we have more than enough trolling of Florida State to hold us over until those powerhouses(!?) kick off in Tallahassee.
Florida State fans did NOT like ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit before this season and they probably won’t like him anymore after his tongue-in-cheek dig on College GameDay last week.
Herbstreit became the face of FSU’s contempt after the team was snubbed from the College Football Playoff following a season-ending injury to quarterback Jordan Travis.
Well, with their season on the ropes before losing to Memphis last Saturday, Herbstreit mocked the “disrespect” coming from the rest of the GameDay panel who picked against Florida State. It was well played, you gotta admit.
https://twitter.com/awfulannouncing/status/1834984976691216554
There was trolling before the game. And there was even more trolling after FSU lost to Memphis.
Now, the Tigers could’ve chosen any number of ways to mock the 0-3 start by the program that poached their last coach, but they chose to focus on the very strange tactic of using water guns at practice.
This is an excellent troll because it not only shows they are paying attention to all the messiness in Tallahassee, but understood just how much FSU fans lost it when they saw the water gun videos.
https://twitter.com/MemphisFB/status/1835049306451058701
https://twitter.com/MemphisFB/status/1835038028202746225
Anyone remember when West Virginia was ranked No. 2 in the BCS poll back in 2007 only to get upset on its home field by unranked Pitt, which was a four-touchdown underdog before the game.
The final score was 13-9.
As former WVU fullback Owen Schmitt said, “We blew it against the [expletive] [expletive] team in the [expletive] world.”
In case you did forget, Pitt had a helpful reminder before hosting (and beating) WVU again on Saturday.
https://twitter.com/adavidhalejoint/status/1834958941391917074?s=46&t=hxe7_4LWfBXIIkZJrQK30Q
It, uh, also seems Pitt is leading the Big 12 — despite playing in the ACC.
https://twitter.com/Pitt_ATHLETICS/status/1836050020623147263
https://twitter.com/CFBONFOX/status/1835026747076534429
The Crimson Tide hadn’t played in Madison since 1928, a full 64 years before House of Pain released “Jump Around”. So you can’t blame Alabama for embracing the tradition at Wisconsin games on Saturday as they beat the Badgers, 42-10. Especially since it appeared plenty of fans had already left the stadium before the end of the fourth quarter.
https://twitter.com/WSUCougarFB/status/1835109225728819401
Yeah, we’ve already gone over this one, but it’s too iconic not to include. Well done, Wazzu. That’s what this sport is all about.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=693157918]
Updated breakdown on week-by-week FBS re-rankings for each Big 12 team.
It has been an interesting start for the Big 12 football season to say the very least. The trio of teams at the top with Kansas State, Oklahoma State, and Utah isn’t a surprise, however, Arizona State looking better than its in-state rivals is. More on the Sun Devils shortly.
Other eyebrow-raisers include the slow starts by the Colorado Buffaloes and Texas Tech Red Raiders, who are both 2-1 but have had poor showings as of late. They both struggled in Week 1 against FCS opposition before getting blown out in Week 2 and coming back with blowout wins of their own in Week 3.
This week we are reviewing Paul Myerberg’s FBS re-rankings under a different lens. Here are the week-by-week rankings through the first three weeks of the 2024 college football season.
| Team | Preseason | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arizona | 42 | 41 | 45 | 50 |
| Arizona State | 105 | 56 | 44 | 28 |
| Baylor | 92 | 86 | 86 | 77 |
| BYU | 64 | 62 | 55 | 46 |
| Cincinnati | 90 | 88 | 88 | 83 |
| Colorado | 89 | 101 | 102 | 88 |
| Houston | 80 | 98 | 98 | 94 |
| Iowa State | 31 | 29 | 14 | 14 |
| Kansas | 23 | 22 | 30 | 52 |
| Kansas State | 15 | 13 | 10 | 9 |
| Oklahoma State | 27 | 26 | 20 | 20 |
| TCU | 38 | 30 | 29 | 30 |
| Texas Tech | 41 | 52 | 80 | 75 |
| Utah | 12 | 10 | 9 | 10 |
| UCF | 20 | 21 | 18 | 15 |
| West Virginia | 40 | 48 | 52 | 65 |
The Sun Devils have shot out of a cannon to begin the 2024 season already matching last season’s win total of three games through three weeks. Former Michigan State quarterback Sam Leavitt now leads them into their first-ever Big 12 matchup when they visit Texas Tech on Saturday.
We thought the Mountaineers turned a corner last season with the 9-4 finish with a win in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl over North Carolina. However, it looks more like the team that put head coach Neal Brown on the hot seat in the first place after dropping both Power Four matchups through three weeks. They face an equally struggling Kansas Jayhawks team on Saturday, another loss and the hot seat rumors might heat up once again.
Let’s make this scheduling agreement a possibility for Penn State, Pitt, and West Virginia!
Penn State has taken it upon itself to rekindle some old regional and traditional rivalries in recent years with the non-conference scheduling with a four-game series with Pitt and a recent home-and-home arrangement with West Virginia. But following Penn State’s season-opening victory over West Virginia a few weeks back, there are no scheduling agreements with either historical rival for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, West Virginia and Pitt squared off this weekend and have one more game to be played in 2025 before picking up their Backyard Brawl rivalry again in 2029 with another four-year scheduling agreement.
Watching Penn State go against Pitt and West Virginia in recent years was great for longtime Penn State fans and newer fans that may have grown up without those fond memories of the matchups with the Panthers and Mountaineers. Many newer fans may scoff at the idea of playing future games against either school for a handful of reasons, but having an in-state rivalry to look forward to on a regular basis again would be fun. There is a scheduling solution that could work for all three schools as well.
The bottom line is I would love to see Penn State, Pitt, and West Virginia play every season in non-conference play, and there is an easy way to give each school a slice of the scheduling pie.
The easiest way to make this work would be to have each school host one game and play one road game on an alternating basis between the three schools. Here is how it could work;
YEAR 1 ROTATION
YEAR 2 ROTATION
No one school gets two home games in the mix in any given year, fans get one traditional and historical rivalry game each season to look forward to, and the travel for all three fanbases is feasible.
I would honestly love to see one of these rivalry matchups take place at the end of the regular season, although it would be more likely to see these games played earlier in the year.
Penn State will stray away from some of their traditional regional opponents on the non-conference schedule the next few seasons. Temple will return to the schedule in 2026 for a home-and-home series, and Syracuse will pop back on for a home-and-home series beginning in 2027.
The rest of the non-conference schedule through 2028 will consist of games against Nevada, FIU, Villanova (FCS opponent), Marshall, Buffalo, Delaware (which will be an FBS school by the time the game is played), Ball State, and UMass.
Would you trade some of those games for matchups with Pitt and West Virginia? I know I would in a second.
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Pitt ralled from 10 down to stun West Virginia
Eli Holstein lost his helmet. Nate Yarnell came into the game with the Backyard Brawl on the line and handed off to Derrick Davis Jr., who ran the football into the end zone from a yard out with 32 seconds left Saturday to give Pitt a 38-34 victory.
Holstein was magnificent on the game-winning drive. On a running play he got the ball to the one-yard line before what seemed like the entire West Virginia defense ripped off his helmet.
Pitt called its final timeout. West Virginia called a timeout. Yet, Holstein had to miss a play because his helmet came off.
Enter Yarnell, who did what he had to do and the Panthers had a victory in the rivalry.
Derrick Davis Jr. winning the Backyard Brawl and shushing the away end. Perfection.
HAIL TO PITT. GO HOME MOUNTAINEERS. pic.twitter.com/dwqY6AGHCI
— RJ Sepich (@RJSepich) September 14, 2024
Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi was fuming afterward, saying his team not only beat the Mountaineers but also the officials.
“I think our DBs did a heck of a job — period,” Narduzzi said. He then shifted his focus to the third team on the field, the officials,” Narduzzi told ESPN’s Dawn Davenport. “I mean, some of the calls we got. Late hit out of bounds. They catch a ball with a hands to the face. I’ve never seen anything like it. You know? Wow. We beat West Virginia in the Backyard Brawl. And we beat the officials, too. In one game.”
Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi slams the officials after beating WVU.
"Some of the calls we got. Late hit out of bounds. They catch a ball with a hands to the face. I ain't never seen anything like it.
We beat West Virginia in the Backyard Brawl. And we beat the officials, too." pic.twitter.com/tnTZdm4vc7
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 14, 2024
The Panthers trailed 34-24 with 4:55 left but rallied behind Holstein, who was 21-of-30 for 301 yards and three TD passes. He also rushed for 59 yards.
Take a look at a trio of alarming observations when looking at college football Week 1.
Week 1 of the college football season is in the books, minus Florida State and Boston College who play Monday evening, and we take this time to discuss our most alarming observations from the first action of the campaign.
Here are the College Sports Wire alarming observations from Week 1:
If Dabo Swinney wants to continue to be stubborn and not use the transfer portal, he has a TON of work to do with his team. The Clemson Tigers did not belong on the same field as the Georgia Bulldogs. Sure, Georgia does that to many teams, but for a game that was hyped as a Top 15 battle in Atlanta, the Tigers should be ashamed.
Clemson will need to figure out ways to get creative on offense. The offense seems to lack a true threat, and they cannot rely on a continual dominant run game, as they just don’t seem to have the line to do that. The Tigers will need to bounce back quickly, as Appalachian State will not lay down and die for them in College Football Week 2.
Just four field goals for the West Virginia Mountaineers. That is not going to get it done. Especially in the Big 12. The Mountaineers were hyped coming into the game as they were a sneaky pick to upset the Nittany Lions, but that never was a chance in the storm-delayed game.
Penn State coach James Franklin called an outstanding offensive game against West Virginia. The Nittany Lions were on upset watch and made quick and easy work to put that to rest.
Drew Allar was good when they needed him to pass the football. Just 17 attempts, but 11 completions and three touchdowns. Nicholas Singleton was sharp on the ground with more than 100 yards. The Nittany Lions showed why they are a third threat out of the Big Ten. Penn State will get to play four straight at home starting Saturday against Bowling Green. Their next road game is October 12th at USC.
Brian Kelly can pound his fist on the table following the loss all he wants. In the end, his team, the LSU Tigers are just not ready for the big time. The Tigers could not slow down the USC Trojans in the final two minutes of the game and force overtime. The Tigers still allowed nearly 450 total yards of offense to the Trojans. The pass defense was atrocious, allowing more than 375 yards in the game.
The verdict is still out on Gus Nussmeier, and the Tigers will see several other tests this season. Coach Kelly has work to do in Baton Rouge. LSU will get a cupcake when they head home and host Nicholls on Saturday. But, a road trip to South Carolina comes up following that one.
USA TODAY’s Paul Myerberg included Penn State among his Week 1 winners.
Penn State seemed to turn some heads and open some eyes around the college football world in Week 1. Penn State’s 34-12 road win at West Virginia was an encouraging performance and will hopefully serve as a preview of things to come this season after the offense opened things up and generated some of the big-gain plays that were rare to see a season ago.
Following the results of Week 1 around the nation, with just a couple more games still to officially go in the books, Penn State was among the teams earning high praise in the weekly roundup from USA TODAY college football writer Paul Myerberg. In Myerberg’s first weekly roundup of winners and losers from college football’s weekend action, Penn State was singled out as one of the top performers.
“The No. 9 Nittany Lions’ new-look offense delivered 457 yards on 7.6 yards per play, led by quarterback [autotag]Drew Allar[/autotag]’s 216 passing yards and three touchdowns on 13.1 yards per throw, in a 34-12 win at West Virginia,” Myereberg highlighted. “This a quick validation of James Franklin’s decision to hire coordinator [autotag]Andy Kotelnicki[/autotag], who previously worked wonders in the same position at Kansas.”
Penn State had just eight plays of 40 yards or more last season. On Saturday against West Virginia, Penn State had four, with two in the air and two on the ground.
“The turning point was a late touchdown drive to end the first half, a 73-yard haul in just three plays to put Penn State in front 20-6 at the break,” Myerberg went on to say. “After an extended weather delay, the Nittany Lions tacked on a pair of touchdowns in the second half for a convincing road win against Power Four opponent.” After one week, the Nittany Lions look like a very legitimate Big Ten threat and one of the top contenders for the playoff.”
The expansion of the College Football Playoff from four teams to 12 was expected to benefit a team like Penn State, but the schedule opens up the possibility for Penn State to make a run for a spot in the Big Ten championship game. This opening road win sets the tone for that objective, but Penn State still has some more challenges to come on the road this season.
Penn State will get Ohio State and Washington at home, but the Nittany Lions will have to make road trips to USC and Wisconsin this season as well. It may have just been one week at West Virginia, but the Nittany Lions sure had the look of a legitimate Big Ten contender in Week 1.
Penn State will play its home opener in Week 2 on Saturday afternoon against Bowling Green. The game will air at noon Eastern on Big Ten Network.
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