The Mountaineers are struggling through their first season under Rich Rodriguez. The injuries are piling up like dirty laundry, and there’s been plenty of noise around the program lately. But Rich Rodriguez isn’t sitting around waiting for things to magically get better. He’s actively reshaping how he’s building this roster, and it starts with a critical decision he’s making about next year. 

According to Mike J. Asti’s report, “WVU HC Rich Rodriguez says they are going to use their final open date (week before last game of season) to do a deep dive on everyone on the current roster and evaluate their situation going forward.” Rodriguez is actually planning to take stock of every single player on his roster during that bye week and figure out who’s worth keeping around and who’s expendable. 

Think of it as a roster audit. He’s going to sit down with his staff, flip through film, and make some honest assessments about the bodies he’s got. For a program that brought in 70-plus transfers last offseason just to plug every hole, this kind of methodical evaluation could be the turning point.​

What’s really interesting here is what Rodriguez revealed about his long-term plan. Instead of living in the transfer portal, Rodriguez is flipping the script completely. Next offseason, he’s planning to sign 35 high school recruits while only grabbing eight to ten “impact” transfers, maybe a few depth pieces on top of that. 

That’s a massive shift from this year’s 70-transfer approach. “We brought a bunch of you [transfers] this year, and we had to,” Rodriguez explained on his radio show. “We got here too late to really sign a big high school class. This year, we’ve been here long enough to sign a really good high school class.” What he’s really saying is that he needs to build from within and develop young talent.

Now, while Rich Rodriguez was trying to figure out how to rebuild this program, he hit a wall that most coaches would’ve panicked over. Right before the season, a major donor who’d promised serious money suddenly backed out. Rich Rodriguez did what any coach in crisis does, he made a phone call to someone he trusted. That someone was Pat McAfee, his former kicker and punter, who happened to have about $60 million in the bank and a whole lot of love for WVU. 

During ESPN College GameDay, McAfee laid it all out: I said, ‘Alright, I’ll help.’ So, I sent the money over. I didn’t even think to myself, man, I should get some leverage here. I should get some say in who’s playing because I think every guy I potentially played, on their way out of the door already. They have not won a lot of games, but I didn’t say that. I just wanted to help the program.” McAfee stepped in without asking for anything in return, without trying to weasel his way into the coaching decisions. He just wrote a check.​ By stepping in to help save the program when it desperately needed it, he’s become a key player in WVU’s future, and if there’s one thing McAfee has shown, it’s that he identifies talent extremely well. And he has got his eyes on one particular quarterback who’s been putting on a show out in Berkeley. 

How McAfee could land a star QB

Pat McAfee has been absolutely captivated by Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, Cal’s true freshman quarterback who’s been putting on a show out in Berkeley. McAfee went on his show and practically couldn’t stop talking about the kid. “That Sagapolutele kid. He’s got a 3.75 GPA. I looked it up. 3.75 GPA. Six foot three. Because when you watch him play, it’s like ‘this guy’s got to be just all ball. This guy’s got to be absolute.’ [He] can move, and he’s humble… Yeah, he throws darts, and it’s fun, and he’s making guys open with his throws.” But McAfee didn’t stop there. He literally said he’s been skipping time with his daughter to watch this kid play—that’s how good Sagapolutele is. 

And while stitching strings of praises for Sagapolutele, and then came the not-so-subtle hint: “It’s like this guy is the one next offseason. I can’t wait till West Virginia goes and says, ‘Aloha, Mahalo for everything you’re about to do for our state.'” That’s McAfee essentially saying that if Sagapolutele hits the transfer portal, WVU needs to be ready to make a major move.​

The timing here is almost too perfect. McAfee has now positioned himself as a genuine power broker at West Virginia. He is not just a donor writing checks but someone deeply invested in the program’s success. Rich Rodriguez is reshaping the roster from the ground up, committing to developing younger talent and being more selective in the portal. And McAfee has been absolutely mesmerized by a 19-year-old lefty from Hawaii. So, there’s a real possibility that McAfee and Rodriguez could make a splash for a quarterback who could genuinely transform the program.