Arizona Football: Will Rich Rod Leave? Part 2
As time goes on, the rumor mill is heating up instead of cooling off on whether or not head Arizona football coach Rich Rodriguez wants to leave Tucson and head for Virginia.
Saturday morning, Greg Hansen of the Arizona Daily Star, wrote a piece on what he thinks are the odds of Arizona’s football coach Rich Rodriguez heading for the Virginia Hills, and the odds were in favor of the departure.
The seven reasons he gave and our input are as follows:
Virginia is “Home” for Rodriguez – Cannot disagree there, except for “home” for his family right now is deep rooted in Tucson with his daughter a sophomore at the U of A and his son, a star quarterback for Catalina foothills high school and had a HUGE win last night with the stands emptying onto the field prompting Rhett Rod to say, it was “probably the greatest moment of my life.” Hmm.
Recruiting is easier because most of the players on the Virginia team are from Virginia – true, easier, but is easier more fun?
Most of the schools he would have to compete with in recruiting are basketball schools – true but ironic since Arizona is always pegged as a basketball school until their last football season.
There is room for improvement at Virginia – but the same was the case in Tucson, and he hasn’t proved he can build a legacy here yet, won’t it look like he is giving up? Won’t he always be called a quitter?
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Next year’s projection for Arizona in the Pac-12 will be last- we might disagree on that end, there are some great recruits coming in next year. when did that bother him? Not this year, Arizona was going to silence the critics until all those injuries piled up on the team.
Attendance at the home in the stands – Arizona is ranked 4th in the Pac-12 in attendance, but it doesn’t compare to attendance in the south, so we agree with that.
Rich Rod owns a vacation home on the Georgia/South Carolina border – well we always knew eventually he would want to go back home, just not this soon.
Rhett Rod said the win was “probably the greatest moment of my life.”
— James Kelley (@jameskelley520) November 7, 2015
All good points, but you have to wonder if Hansen knows something more and he is just letting us down slowly. One could argue that most fans do not want to see Rich Rod leave, and all the recruits trust the coaches who recruited them, so we would hate to see a mass exodus of verbal commits head for the doors.
Rumors around the Arizona coaches calling and assuring the commits and recruits have also surfaced, so that is a good thing.
Khalil Tate Coach Rich Rodriguez Photo by Leslie Tate
While there are a lot of reasons why Rich Rod would leave, there are also reasons why he would eventually stay. For one, there will always be another chance at coaching for Virginia, if they want him, they will get him and the price will be higher if he can prove he can turn a program around at Arizona. After all the Michigan debacle is still haunting him to this day and if this year went as planned, it may have dissipated, which is probably a disappointment for him.
If somehow, some way, the team can rally around their coach and pull off at least one victory in the next three weeks, if fans tempers calm down and everyone pulls together in tough times, maybe he stays.
You have to think the way the season has gone, and the way the Pac-12 has kind of screwed Arizona this season, he has some legitimate gripes and threatening to leave may be a tool to use to pressure everyone to change things.
Frustrations sometimes lead to rash decisions. Frustrations also lead to lashing out, as we have seen in chat rooms all over the internet. But something is up, and something big enough that Hansen decided it was time to publish these odds on game day. But speculating just kills brain cells.
Next: Arizona Football: Will Rich Rodriguez Leave?
Instead of speculation, maybe we can just feel confident that Arizona is a great school, with wonderful fans who do care, and even if Rich Rod leaves, which we still feel is not good for the program, someone who wants to coach the team will fill his shoes.
Let the chips fall where they may and as always Beardown!