The Rich Rodriguez introduction press conference was a rowdy affair, with a fan ejected by the police midway through, and Pitt was one of the key topics.
As the fan, who was wearing a WVU hoodie, was ejected, Rodriguez said that any more Pitt fans could leave the building, which drew further applause. And it didn’t stop there.
Before the press conference, Rodriguez made an appearance on the Pat McAfee Show with former West Virginia punter and kicker Pat McAfee, and of course, the Backyard Brawl was brought up.
McAfee mentioned the Brawl taking place on Sept. 13, in the third week of the season, in Morgantown, W.Va., and Rodriguez let his feeling for the Pitt Panthers be known.
“I probably misspoke a little bit earlier when I said the two worst four letter words are soft and lazy,” Rodriguez told McAfee. “I left out Pitt.”
And the West Virginia crowd in the background, of course, erupted with an “eat s*** Pitt” chant.
Rodriguez notably ended his first tenure at WVU with a shocking 13-9 loss at Milan Puskar Stadium in Morgantown, which knocked then-No. 2 West Virginia out of the national championship game. Rodriguez himself left soon after for Michigan, a disastrous three-year stint that ended with his dismissal.
Rich Rodriguez bounced around with head coaching stops at Arizona and Jacksonville State and other stops at Ole Miss, Hawaii and Louisiana-Monroe. He accepted the WVU job earlier this week, returning for the second time.
Pitt and West Virginia are scheduled to play the final game of a four-game series in September, which comes on Sept. 13. Rodriguez, when asked about the importance of the Backyard Brawl, said it’s the biggest game of the season for WVU every season.
