Good Riddance Rich Fraudriguez

Perhaps it is sour grapes or perhaps my delicate soul has yet to recover from the crushing loss to Pitt a couple of weeks ago, but I couldn't care less about Rich Rodriguez bailing out on the Mountaineers. How valuable can a guy be if he gets a strategic beatdown at the hands of Dave Wanstache in the biggest game of his coaching career?

The conventional wisdom is that Rich Rodriguez is some sort of offensive genius. Certainly, he has been the most influential coach in college football over the past decade. His spread offense, or evolved versions of it, have become the norm for college teams across the country. Instead of a genius however, I think of Fraudriguez as more of an offensive savant. The Rainman of college football. Sure, he can tell you how many toothpicks are in a box, but he doesn't have the common sense to throw a post against a defense playing with ten in the box.

Assuredly, Fraudriguez deserves some of the credit for WVU's recent surge into the national spotlight, but I believe the true man that made it all possible is named Mike Tranghese. Tranghese is the president of the Big East conference. The same conference that lost Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College to the ACC a few years ago. The same conference that brought in Cincinnati, South Florida, Louisville, and Connecticut to replace them. WVU was historically a four loss team before three Big East powerhouses fled to the ACC. Bring in four lesser teams and suddenly WVU becomes a two loss team. Is it because Fraudriguez is Lombardi reincarnate or is it because WVU gets to play Connecticut every November instead of Miami?

The anger coming from Morgantown has less to do with Fraudriguez leaving then how it happened. It all started this time last year when Fraud all but took the job at Alabama before an emergency meeting of boosters and WVU brass banned together to hand Fraud a ridiculous pay raise and a load of promises to improve WVU's facilities. Fraudriguez accepted the last minute offer, lied about never verbally accepting the job to Alabama and sobbed about how much he loved Morgantown, which incidentally is where he grew up and where Don Nehlen generously allowed that fat prick to walk on to the football team twenty five years ago.

Fast forward to November 30th of this year. Two days before the biggest football game in WVU history, Fraudriguez gets a call from Michigan. Obviously Fraud is going to ignore the call and get his team ready to walk over Pitt and play in the national championship right? Wrong. Fraud entertains the offer if only to leverage WVU for more money, blows the Pitt game, and I am out a thousand bucks for a wasted trip to Morgantown. Undeterred, Fraudriguez flies out for an interview with Michigan and then tells them he is passing on the job thinking everyone will love his loyalty so much in Morgantown that he may get another raise. Unfortunately for the Fraud, WVU brass told Fraud that if he pulled this kind of stunt again they would fire his ass. Realizing that trying to leverage for more money two weeks after losing horribly to Wanstache in the biggest game in WVU history and costing me a thousand dollars may not win him a lot of support in West Virginia, Fraud decides to take the Michigan job after all.

Fair enough. But the Fraud doesn't stop there. Instead of meeting with his team to tell them the news like a man, he decides to call up some WVU recruits. Specifically, he calls up Terrelle Pryor, the best high school spread quarterback in the county and tells him to scratch WVU off of his list and consider coming to Michigan. This does not sit well with Fraud's current/former players. After eventually calling a team meeting, Fraud is berated by the WVU players and forced out of the WVU locker room. It would be in Fraud's best interest to make that the last time he ever steps onto the West Virginia campus. He should probably hire someone to come get his stuff.

In summation, Rich is a fraud, WVU will live on to burn more couches and lose more big games, and I will continue to blow a thousand dollars traveling to them.