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The definitive Digiday guide to what's in and out for advertising in 2025

InFiring chief diversity officersOut Hiring chief diversity officers  In Trump administration versus Meta OutBiden administration versus Google  https://digiday.com/?p=562755 In Musk sues advertisersOut Musk tells advertisers to go f*ck themselves  In Agency curated marketplacesOutAgency trading desks  In Advertisers size up ThreadsOut Advertisers steer clear of X InWondering if 2025 is the return of ad tech IPOsOut Wondering if 2024 is the return of ad tech […]

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The definitive Digiday guide to what's in and out for advertising in 2025

In
Firing chief diversity officers
Out 
Hiring chief diversity officers 

In 
Trump administration versus Meta 
Out
Biden administration versus Google 

https://digiday.com/?p=562755

In 
Musk sues advertisers
Out 
Musk tells advertisers to go f*ck themselves 

In 
Agency curated marketplaces
Out
Agency trading desks 

In 
Advertisers size up Threads
Out 
Advertisers steer clear of X

In
Wondering if 2025 is the return of ad tech IPOs
Out 
Wondering if 2024 is the return of ad tech M&A

In 
Buying programmatic ads via a SSP
Out 
Buying programmatic ads via a DSP

In
Publishers bemoan commercial deals from AI platforms
Out
Publishers bemoan commercial deals from tech platforms

In
Talking up Bluesky
Out
Talking up Threads

In
Netflix U-turn on live sports
Out 
Netflix U-turn on ads 

In 
SPO-driven by quality 
Out
SPO-driven by commercials

In
Brands espouse conservative values
Out 
Brands espouse liberal values 

In
Retail media networks building ad tech
Out
Retail media networks buying ad tech

In 
AI platforms cozying up to publishers
Out
Social platforms divorcing publishers 

In 
The Trade Desk’s disintermediating CTV suppliers 
Out 
The Trade Desk’s disintermediating SSPs

In
Creators (still) bemoaning platform payouts
Out
Creators bemoaning platform payouts 

In
Google antitrust reality
Out
Google antitrust Schadenfreude 

In 
Creators are becoming entrepreneurs
Out 
Creators are becoming consultants

In 
Retail media networks push incrementality 
Out
Retail media networks push ROAS

In 
SSPs betting on curated deals
Out 
SSPs betting on SPO deals

In
Principal media
Out
Principal media

In 
Agencies dealing with client CFO
Out 
Agencies dealing with client procurement

In
Snapchat subscriptions FTW
Out
Snapchat ads FTL

In 
A-political CMOs
Out
Political CMOs

In
Creators spurn algorithms
Out 
Creators reliant on algorithms

Another year, another remarkable give and take for the advertising industry. See below for what we think is in store for 2025.

In
Fragmentation of brand safety
Out
Industrialization of brand safety

In 
Platforms get in on curation 
Out 
Ad tech gets in on curation

In
Lawmakers go after AI platforms
Out
Lawmakers  go after ad-funded platforms 

In
Esports spring
Out
Esports winter

In
Worrying over how many third-party cookies will be left in the Chrome browser
Out
Worrying over no third-party cookies in the Chrome browser

In
Publishers influx to Bluesky
Out
Publishers exodus from X 

In
Saudi investment in esports
Out
VC investment in esports

In
Brands’ conspicuous silence on Google break up threat
Out 
Brands’ conspicuous silence on Google’s post-cookie plans 

NIL

How MAC football has shifted in the NIL and transfer portal era

DETROIT — In recent years, it has become more and more challenging to be a college football head coach. Gone are the days of recruiting players and coaching them up for four or five years. Instead, the sport finds itself in an era of unprecedented player movement thanks to the transfer portal quickly facilitating moves […]

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DETROIT — In recent years, it has become more and more challenging to be a college football head coach.

Gone are the days of recruiting players and coaching them up for four or five years. Instead, the sport finds itself in an era of unprecedented player movement thanks to the transfer portal quickly facilitating moves between NCAA institutions with few restrictions.

Widespread tampering under the guise of name, image and likeness (NIL) deals has only exacerbated such movement. While schools and coaches can’t directly recruit players from other teams, there are no rules preventing independent NIL collectives from negotiating with agents and making offers to players to enter the portal. This has created a system where the top players in the NCAA’s non-autonomous conferences (Group of 5) are often poached by teams in autonomous conferences (Power 4).

The Mid-American Conference is in the former group, seeing its top talent migrate up to the Power 4 level more frequently over the last few years. Of the 11 players on the 2024 All-MAC first-team who retained eligibility for 2025, only two will return to their 2024 teams. Meanwhile, eight of the nine who transferred wound up at Power 4 schools.

This new era raises plenty of questions. How can the coaches of the MAC best respond and adapt to the constant roster turnover? Does the constantly looming threat of the portal affect locker rooms during the season? How understanding are players when their teammates move on? Well, like almost everything else, it varies from school to school.

Coaches emphasize culture, relationships

Perhaps the most eventful transfer portal season among the MAC belongs to Ball State. Exactly half of its roster — 55 out of 110 players — is new this season, and new head coach Mike Uremovich replaced almost the entire staff with his own guys. With more new faces than old, it’s been easier for everyone to get on the same page as the program begins a new era.

“The new guys who came in and the guys who were returning, it was all new to them, so they were all going through it for the first time.” Uremovich said. “It’s fun to watch that all coming together, and then you have the new crop of guys that comes in May and June and high school guys, so we’ve got to get those guys bought in too.”

The Cardinals are one of six teams in the MAC who will have a new coach this season. This group includes the reigning MAC champion Ohio Bobcats, as former offensive coordinator Brian Smith will take over the head coaching post from Tim Albin, who took the Charlotte job mere hours after the MAC title game.

Despite Albin’s stunning move and the fact that he took a slew of assistant coaches with him, Ohio only lost a handful of players to the portal. The Bobcats have also had success recruiting from the portal, as many of the key contributors to their conference championship victory were former transfers.

“When you really emphasize the culture within your program and that gets built among the players that are in it, and you are constantly emphasizing it within your team, the new players are going to be able to adapt to that culture, or they’re not going to work out,” Smith said. “We’ve done a good job of identifying kids that we think fit what we do from a program standpoint, but also culturally.”

Another team with limited roster turnover this offseason was Buffalo. The Bulls had the MAC’s least active portal period in terms of both transfers out and in, and they were one of the two teams to retain a 2024 first-team All-MAC player with linebacker Red Murdock. Going into his second season as the head coach, Pete Lembo takes pride in the Bulls’ limited movement and cited the program’s emphasis on relationships as a key factor in the continuity.

“I think the best way to overcome those (challenges) is to do what we’ve always done, which is build great relationships,” Lembo said. “The reason I got into coaching 30-plus years ago was because I enjoyed the relationships, player-to-player, coach-to-player, the staff, the administration, and those things haven’t changed.”

Of course, not every team in the conference was as fortunate as Ohio and Buffalo. Eastern Michigan, for example, has 50 new players this season. Twelfth-year coach Chris Creighton — tied for the longest tenured head coach in the MAC — remembers a time before the conference was ravaged by the portal and has had to adapt to its new landscape. Creighton believes that his adaptation has been made easier by the fact that his team culture is firmly solidified with his decade-plus of experience with the Eagles.

“Our guys know who they are, so we can recruit to that,” Creighton said. “We’re not trying to figure out who we are, we’re not trying to establish who we are. That’s what we want to continue to be really strong in, is knowing who we are and having a certain culture.”

No hard feelings among players

While one might expect constant roster turnover and NIL negotiations to create animosity or jealousy within a locker room, the players of the MAC are generally understanding. Most players get the “business decision” nature of their teammates who opt for the portal, and those who stick around know they need to rally around the next man up.

“We’re not going to dwell on who’s not here,” said Eastern Michigan defensive lineman Jefferson Adam. “You know, best of luck to them, but we’re just building off what we have because that’s ultimately what’s most important.”

Players who do decide to stay often play a role in convincing others to do the same. For coaches who now have to worry about re-recruiting their own players, having players who can do it for them is a big advantage.

“For a head coach, it’s one of your biggest jobs to recruit your own roster,” Western Michigan coach Lance Taylor said. “Your own players can be a huge part of that because honestly, those are the guys that they battle with every single day. They live with them, they hang out with them, they have really close and deep relationships.”

Those relationships don’t expire when players do decide to leave. Adam, a former Iowa State transfer, is still in touch with some of his Cyclones teammates. Ohio quarterback Parker Navarro spent his first two seasons at UCF, where he met two friends who he remained close enough with to be in each of their weddings recently. Ball State defensive tackle Darin Conley is still close with many of the former Cardinals who left this offseason and continues to support them in their new destinations.

“You’ve got to remember these guys were our teammates,” Conley said. “We’ve been through thick and thin, they just happened to go somewhere they thing was a benefit for them. You can’t really hate or knock them for that. With the guys who transferred, we’re still close friends. A lot of guys still hang out with each other because we still kind of live close.

“They’re still our guys, and we’re still going to love them. They’re just not currently our teammates.”

Contact Cade Hampton via email at cbhampton@muncie.gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @CadeHamp10.



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Trump’s executive Order on College Sports Sparks NCAA, Mountain West, and More — With Support from Nick Saban

Trump’s Executive Order on College Sports Sparks NCAA, Mountain West, and More — With Support from Nick Saban In a major development for college sports, President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order Thursday called “SAVING COLLEGE SPORTS,” sparking debate and raising awareness about issues related to name, image, and likeness (NIL), athlete pay, and […]

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Trump’s Executive Order on College Sports Sparks NCAA, Mountain West, and More — With Support from Nick Saban

In a major development for college sports, President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order Thursday called “SAVING COLLEGE SPORTS,” sparking debate and raising awareness about issues related to name, image, and likeness (NIL), athlete pay, and the NCAA’s role.

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While the immediate effects are mostly symbolic and not structural, its potential impacts on the NCAA—and on conference groups like the Mountain West—could be far-reaching.

The move comes amid growing national concern that college sports have become a “headless system,” now seen as “free agency,” with mega-collectives and multi-million-dollar payouts replacing tradition, loyalty, and balance.

While not the main focus here, Trump has spoken about this complaint many times in conversations with retired Alabama football coach Nick Saban, who met with the president earlier this month to discuss the declining state of college athletics.

According to sources familiar with their discussion, Saban told the president some hard truths about the unintended consequences of the NIL era, emphasizing that federal protection is crucial.

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“We are losing what has made college sports special,” Saban reportedly said. “And without a national standard, the unfair imbalance will only worsen, and it will be the Olympic sports, non-revenue programs, and student-athletes at smaller schools who suffer most.”

After reviewing the executive order, Saban praised it, calling it “a step in the right direction.” He added that while legislative action will still be required, the president’s directive sends “a strong message that college athletics still have some integrity.”

Trump’s five-page order highlights this urgency. He criticizes recent court rulings and policy shifts that have caused bidding wars by boosters, large payments to players, and free transfers. “College sports is not, and should not be, professional sports,” the order states. “Without guardrails to curb the chaos… many college sports will likely cease to exist soon.”

Among the proposals in the order are:

Protecting scholarships for non-revenue sports—requiring schools with large athletic budgets to increase or maintain scholarships for Olympic and women’s sports.

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Banning “pay-for-play” models—preventing booster collectives from offering athletes payment unrelated to commercial ventures,

Clarifying athlete status—directing the Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to confirm that athletes are students, not employees,

Limiting legal risks for schools—advising that they be shielded from antitrust lawsuits that could threaten NCAA governance and transfer policies.

While Trump’s executive order does not have the power of federal law, it can put pressure on Congress members, especially now that the SCORE Act—an NCAA-friendly piece of legislation—is officially moving through Congress.

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Senate leaders, including Ted Cruz, are involved in bipartisan talks to create a companion bill.

Effects on the Mountain West and the NCAA

For mid-major conferences like the Mountain West, the executive order offers both hope and concern.

There is hope because an executive order could support a quasi-policy to stabilize scholarship opportunities for non-revenue sports at schools like UNM, Utah State, and San Diego State.

The concern is that this hope comes with unpredictability because decisions can change, and the playing field will still be heavily skewed in favor of power conferences that can capitalize on NIL-driven disparities in strength.

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The Mountain West has much smaller budgets—$50 to $60 million per sports program—and recruiting and keeping top talent will be especially difficult under current free-market conditions.

An executive order that limits unregulated booster interference to protect opportunities in non-revenue sports could be crucial for their survival—if subsequent actions make this possible.

Nevertheless, many experts, including NCAA President Charlie Baker, insist that there is no long-term solution without Congressional intervention. “You can’t fix this stuff from executive order,” Baker said on Thursday. “Our focus … has got to be the legislative process.”

However, as the saying goes in politics, just like in sports, momentum matters. Trump’s executive order, along with high-profile support from coaching legend Saban, could speed up legislative action on Capitol Hill.

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When a sport urgently needs stability and reinforcement during rapid changes, that signal might be enough to cause a ripple effect.

As Purdue coach Barry Odom recently stated, “The game’s been here for a hundred years and it’s gonna be here for a hundred more.”

That might be true, but after this order and with prominent figures like Trump and Saban finally aligned, the game could begin to resemble what it once was.

All this being said, I think we can all agree that something needs to be done to address the issues in NCAA college sports and protect its original purpose for college athletes when competing at any university.

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Ultimately, Trump’s executive order — along with voices like Nick Saban’s — could mark a turning point in a historically chaotic and often unchecked era of college sports.

The introduction of NIL and the transfer portal has brought positive changes for student-athletes, but perhaps the pendulum swung too far, too quickly.

Guardrails aren’t about limiting opportunity — they’re about ensuring fairness, preserving all sports, and restoring the balance that originally made college athletics special.

Therefore, this correction isn’t just warranted; it’s long overdue.

More from mwcconnection.com:



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Trump signs order to clarify college athletes’ employment status amid NIL chaos

WILL WEISSERT Associated Press WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order mandating that federal authorities clarify whether college athletes can be considered employees of the schools they play for in an attempt to create clearer national standards in the NCAA’s name, image and likeness era. Trump directed the secretary of labor […]

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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order mandating that federal authorities clarify whether college athletes can be considered employees of the schools they play for in an attempt to create clearer national standards in the NCAA’s name, image and likeness era.

Trump directed the secretary of labor and the National Labor Relations Board to clarify the status of collegiate athletes through guidance or rules “that will maximize the educational benefits and opportunities provided by higher education institutions through athletics.” The order does not provide or suggest specifics on the controversial topic of college athlete employment.

The move comes after months of speculation about whether Trump will establish a college sports commission to tackle some of the thorny issues facing what is now a multibillion-dollar industry. He instead issued an order intended to add some controls to “an out-of-control, rudderless system in which competing university donors engage in bidding wars for the best players, who can change teams each season.”

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“Absent guardrails to stop the madness and ensure a reasonable, balanced use of resources across collegiate athletic programs that preserves their educational and developmental benefits, many college sports will soon cease to exist,” Trump’s order says. “It is common sense that college sports are not, and should not be, professional sports, and my administration will take action accordingly.”

There has been a dramatic increase in money flowing into and around college athletics and a sense of chaos. Key court victories won by athletes angry that they were barred for decades from earning income based on their celebrity and from sharing in the billions of revenue they helped generate have gutted the amateurism model long at the heart of college sports.

Facing a growing number of state laws undercutting its authority, the NCAA in July 2021 cleared the way for athletes to cash in with NIL deals with brands and sponsors — deals now worth millions. That came mere days after a 9-0 decision from the Supreme Court that found the NCAA cannot impose caps on education-related benefits schools provide to their athletes because such limits violate antitrust law.

The NCAA’s embrace of NIL deals set the stage for another massive change that took effect July 1: The ability of schools to begin paying millions of dollars to their own athletes, up to $20.5 million per school over the next year. The $2.8 billion House settlement shifts even more power to athletes, who have also won the ability to transfer from school to school without waiting to play.

At Big Ten Conference football media days in Las Vegas, Purdue coach Barry Odom was asked about the Trump order.

“We’ve gotten to the point where government is involved. Obviously, there’s belief it needs to be involved,” he said. “We’ll get it all worked out. The game’s been around for a hundred years and it’s going to be around 100 more.”

The NCAA has been lobbying for several years for limited antitrust protection to keep some kind of control over this new landscape — and avoid more crippling lawsuits — but a handful of bills have gone nowhere in Congress. Trump’s order makes no mention of that, nor does it refer to any of the current bills in Congress aimed at addressing issues in college sports.

NCAA President Charlie Baker and the nation’s largest conferences both issued statements saying there is a clear need for federal legislation.

“The association appreciates the Trump administration’s focus on the life-changing opportunities college sports provides millions of young people and we look forward to working with student-athletes, a bipartisan coalition in Congress and the Trump administration,” said Baker, while the conferences said it was important to pass a law with national standards for athletes’ NIL rights as soon as possible.

The 1,100 universities that comprise the NCAA have insisted for decades that athletes are students who cannot be considered anything like a school employee. Still, some coaches have recently suggested collective bargaining as a potential solution to the chaos they see.

It is a complicated topic: Universities would become responsible for paying wages, benefits, and workers’ compensation and schools and conferences have insisted they will fight any such move in court. While private institutions fall under the National Labor Relations Board, public universities must follow labor laws that vary from state to state and it’s worth noting that virtually every state in the South has “right to work” laws that present challenges for unions.

  • Calls for adding or at least preserving athletic scholarships and roster spots for non-revenue sports, which are those outside football and basketball. The House settlement allows for unlimited scholarships but does impose roster limits, leading to a complicated set of decisions for each program at each school that include potential concerns about Title IX equity rules. Trump said “opportunities for scholarships and collegiate athletic competition in women’s and non-revenue sports must be preserved and, where possible, expanded.”
  • Asks the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission to “preserve college athletics through litigation” and other actions to protect the rights and interests of athletes — a stance that could influence ongoing lawsuits filed by athletes over eligibility and other issues.
  • Directs White House staff to work with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to protect the collegiate pipeline feeding Team USA. College sports programs produce around three-quarters of U.S. Olympians at a typical Summer Games, but some are on uncertain footing as schools begin sharing revenue with athletes and the lion’s share going to football and basketball.

AP National Writer Eddie Pells contributed.



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The Rich Rodriguez Era Resumes

Story Links MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – There’s a lot happening in Morgantown these days. West Virginia University’s two primary revenue sports, football and men’s basketball, have new coaches, and downtown in Stewart Hall, Michael Benson is still settling in as WVU’s 27th president. What is immediately confronting Benson at a 30,000-foot level are the […]

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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – There’s a lot happening in Morgantown these days. West Virginia University’s two primary revenue sports, football and men’s basketball, have new coaches, and downtown in Stewart Hall, Michael Benson is still settling in as WVU’s 27th president.

What is immediately confronting Benson at a 30,000-foot level are the headwinds of a nationwide higher education system experiencing declining public trust, financial instability and the perception in some circles that academic offerings are not meeting societal needs.

Down closer to the ground, Benson’s athletics department, overseen by Wren Baker, continues to deal with the fallout of the recent House Settlement and the added financial burden of having to compensate its athletes.

In a comprehensive three-part series posted on WVUsports.com earlier this summer, Baker discussed the need to increase revenue for West Virginia to keep up with the rest of the Big 12.  

Hoppy Kercheval’s recent commentary on West Virginia MetroNews’ website provided a more condensed analysis of the situation.

At the heart of the matter is the profitability and success of the department’s No. 1 revenue generator – Mountaineer football. When football was nationally ranked and winning BCS bowls in the mid-2000s, Milan Puskar Stadium was consistently full, and the athletics department was thriving.

In 2007, during Rich Rodriguez‘s peak year of success, West Virginia averaged 60,400 fans for its six home football dates that season. Since joining the Big 12 in 2012, however, the best year for attendance was in 2018 when the Mountaineers averaged 58,158 fans per game.

That was also the last time West Virginia was in the Associated Press College Football Top 25 Poll. The program’s current seven-year rankings drought is its longest since 1969 when coach Jim Carlen ended WVU’s 11-year poll hiatus.

Over the last 56 years, there were two four-year gaps in the polls from 1977-81 and from 1998-2002, and in both instances, coaching changes were required.

When Don Nehlen took over in 1980, in just a year’s time he had the Mountaineers pointed upward. Then, when Nehlen realized his program was growing stale and needed some reinvigoration in the late 1990s, he decided to step aside after the 2000 season and let the 37-year-old Rodriguez take over.

Two years later, Rich Rod had West Virginia back in the rankings and toward the end of his first tenure here, the Mountaineers had become a perennial top-10 program.

Rich Rodriguez and Wren Baker
Coach Rich Rodriguez with Director of Athletics Wren Baker (Raquel Rodriguez/Mountaineer Football photo).

Now, 24 years later, Rodriguez is back to give WVU football another much-needed jolt of adrenaline. Over the last 17 years, Rodriguez’s stops have included Ann Arbor, Michigan, Tucson, Arizona, Oxford, Mississippi, Monroe, Louisiana, and Jacksonville, Alabama.

He’s won 190 football games at some places where winning isn’t always easy to do.

“I’ve been on this journey just like Forrest Gump,” he said earlier this month at Big 12 media days in Frisco, Texas. “I was in the Bayou, out in the desert, in the hills of Alabama and all over the place. I would have stayed at Jax State for the rest of my career and would have been perfectly happy because I loved it there.

“We made great friends, we were winning and having success, but this was an opportunity to go back home and finish my career at a place I played at, coached at (four different times), and all of that is really neat,” he added.

Back in 2001, when Rodriguez was first selling his style of play to the fanbase, he talked about “spotting the ball” and his guys playing “with their hair on fire” and “holding the rope.” Subsequent years at other places have led him to simplify it to just playing with a “hard edge.”

That was the calling card of his most successful West Virginia teams anyway. They didn’t always win, but they were going to fight until the final play, and fans usually stuck around even until the bitter end watching it.

There were no halftime traffic jams on Don Nehlen Drive trying to get out of dodge like we’ve witnessed over the last three or four years. Mountaineer fans loathe losing, for sure, but they despise a lack of toughness and effort even more. To them, watching players jumping up and down on the sidelines before kickoffs doesn’t count as enthusiasm.

“You can sit in the stands and maybe not understand the Xs and Os, but you can tell if guys are playing hard,” Rodriguez said. “I didn’t do a lot of reviewing of last year because last year was last year, but I’ve talked to our guys about a couple of games I watched and told them, ‘We did not play as hard as we can play.’ There is never an excuse for that. 

“We didn’t do that at times, and that has got to change immediately,” he added.

Rodriguez knows that many fans coming to Morgantown for games drive long distances to get here, in some instances as much as six or seven hours, which means they’ve got a lot longer to ponder some of the poor performances they saw in those double-digit home defeats last season.

There is a responsibility for the players to perform and it’s Rodriguez’s job to get the most out of them.

“Our fans cry when we win and they cry when we lose; it’s emotional,” he explained. “It’s personal for me. I was that way when I was a player, and I was that way when I coached here. Have I mellowed a little bit? I don’t know, but I like winning. 

“Every decision I make is does it help us win? It has nothing to do with anybody’s feelings and that’s probably a singleness of purpose, which doesn’t ring well with some people, but to me, everywhere I’ve ever been – does it help us win?”

Naturally, the obvious solution is getting better players, but Rodriguez concedes that’s going to take some time.

“A large majority of our roster is from somewhere else,” he pointed out. “We must make it feel like this is their home, just like they grew up in Morgantown, Grant Town or wherever the case may be. It’s got to be that important to them to do that.”

The two things Rodriguez and his assistant coaches can address immediately are effort and toughness. That process already began last spring, carried over during the summer and will continue when preseason camp opens next week.

In the meantime, he knows there is still a portion of the fanbase that he’s got win over again. When you have unprecedented success and then leave, there is always a desire to want more. Consequently, he’s had some awkward conversations during the hiring process last December and in the ensuing months interacting with fans at Mountaineer Athletic Club functions.

“There have been a couple of times when people have said something here and there, and I understand it,” he said. “Shoot, it might be better they did have hard feelings because then maybe they did miss you. I don’t mind looking back on it if you can learn something from it.”

The learning continues, a process that first began in 1988 at Salem College when he was only 24 years old. A year later, he became the nation’s youngest unemployed head coach when the school dropped football.

“I probably don’t say it enough, but I’m very, very grateful for the opportunity to coach here, and I take it very seriously,” he explained. “I’ve learned a whole lot in a week, let alone the last 17 years. They should be getting a better version of me and my staff, and I hope they will get a better version of our players over the next couple of years, too.”

Most fans are buying in.

Season ticket and 304 Mobile Pass sales have surpassed 31,000 for the first time since 2013, soon after the Mountaineers were coming off their Orange Bowl victory over Clemson.

Rodriguez understands the importance football’s success means to the overall health and well-being of Mountaineer athletics. It even extends beyond that to the health and well-being of the entire University and the local economy.

Historically, good football seasons typically mean higher enrollments for the school the following year.

“We’re a business now,” Rodriguez observed. “Going forward, every coach and every athletic director is going to tell you we’re running a business, and you don’t want to go bankrupt running your business.

“We’re in a good position because we’re the only deal in the state, so we’ve got to make good business decisions, hire the right people, hire the right players and make the right decisions. When you make a wrong one, correct it in a hurry and we’ll be fine,” he said.

Rodriguez says West Virginia University is the only school in the country he can tell recruits the meaning of getting a degree from here.

“I think ours is pretty good,” he said. “My degree means something. I had a great experience here. They can’t get rid of me now. This is it. I’m finishing where I got started at West Virginia.”

And for Rodriguez to finally complete what was left undone here 18 years ago in 2007?

“Win; that’s what I’ve got to do,” he concluded.

Preseason practice gets underway on Wednesday, July 30.

 



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Big Ten coach reveals he ‘lost his locker room’ over NIL in 2025

Maryland said goodbye to longtime quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa last offseason and promptly suffered through its worst season since 2019. The Terrapins lost 8 games in 2024, missing out on a bowl game for the third time under coach Mike Locksley. The offense suffered without Tagovailoa at the controls. Maryland ranked 95th in offensive efficiency, averaging […]

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Maryland said goodbye to longtime quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa last offseason and promptly suffered through its worst season since 2019. The Terrapins lost 8 games in 2024, missing out on a bowl game for the third time under coach Mike Locksley.

The offense suffered without Tagovailoa at the controls. Maryland ranked 95th in offensive efficiency, averaging only 5.4 yards per play. And the Terps averaged just 23.7 points per game to rank 100th in the FBS.

But the dysfunction can’t be entirely attributed to the change at quarterback. In fact, at Big Ten Media Days this week, Locksley pulled back the curtain a bit and revealed something deeper was at play.

“I’ll tell you, a year ago Coach Locks lost his locker room,” Locksley said. “I lost my locker room, and it wasn’t because I wasn’t a good coach. It wasn’t because they weren’t good players because we were better than a 4-win team.

“We had haves and have-nots for the first time in our locker room, and the landscape of college football taught me a valuable lesson. That valuable lesson is it’s important for me, even in the midst of this change, to continue to educate our players on the importance of what playing for something bigger than yourself is all about. And I can tell you that if I’ve got to put my desk in the locker room this year, I will.”

Locksley went on to say he now has a sign posted outside the Maryland locker room that instructs players to leave the “Louis belts,” car keys, and “financial statements” outside because inside the locker room, “we’ll all pay the same price for success or failure.”

Maryland hired a general manager this offseason, Geroy Simon, to take some of the burden of roster management off Locksley. The former Alabama assistant admitted that last year was tough on him as a coach.

“For the first time, those really strong relationships were questioned because I had to decide whether to pay a freshman coming in or take care of a veteran player that helped me go to 3 bowl games,” Locksley said. “It was hard to do both.

“… That’s what last year was about for me, but that’s also why I’m excited about this year, because I don’t know what kind of team I have just yet, but I know that they’re really talented. It’s a matter of them playing for something bigger than themselves, which we’re in the process of developing that type of culture.”

Derek PetersonDerek Peterson

Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.



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$1.1M NIL-Valued Star Claps Back at HC Brian Kelly’s “Death Valley Jr.” Jab Ahead of Clemson vs LSU College Football Showdown

LSU and Clemson have a lot of things in common, aside from their teams both being called the Tigers. Both teams call their respective home stadiums “Death Valley,” though LSU head coach Brian Kelly riled up Clemson fans by calling their home stadium, Memorial Stadium, “Death Valley Junior.” TJ Parker was having none of that […]

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LSU and Clemson have a lot of things in common, aside from their teams both being called the Tigers. Both teams call their respective home stadiums “Death Valley,” though LSU head coach Brian Kelly riled up Clemson fans by calling their home stadium, Memorial Stadium, “Death Valley Junior.” TJ Parker was having none of that and fired back at the LSU coach.

The clap-back from Parker was also a nod to the teams’ season opener against each other on Aug. 30, where LSU will be visiting what Kelly called “Death Valley Junior.” LSU has a strong team this year, with a lot of transfers, but TJ Parker, whose NIL is valued at $1.1 million, noted that they will be in for quite the challenge for LSU.

“They can have their opinion. We’re gonna handle all that on August 30,” TJ Parker said. “At the end of the day, we can do all the talking, we still got to play. So, we gonna see, you know what I’m saying? They’re hyping up everybody across the board, all these transfers they got — we’ll see.”

The last time LSU met, the Bayou Tigers defeated Clemson 42-25 during the 2019 national championship game. However, that was a different time, and the Tigers had a different coach. Kelly has not yet won a national title himself, though the two previous LSU coaches did, and Kelly is seen to still be playing catchup to them.

Clemson’s Memorial Stadium was the first to be called “Death Valley” by Presbyterian College head coach Lonnie McMillian back in 1948. LSU did not start calling Tiger Stadium “Death Valley” until over 10 years later, in 1959, after LSU defeated Clemson at home, 1959, when it was known as “Deaf Valley” for how loud it got.

TJ Parker Speaks on Not Leaving Clemson Despite Transfer Offers From Other Schools

As for TJ Parker, he actually has a lot of offers from other schools to enter the transfer portal, but he has so far stayed loyal to Clemson. During the ACC Media Days, the defensive end revealed why he has not even entertained any of them.

“There’s no point in me leaving if I have everything I want here,” Parker told reporters.

This statement from Parker only reinforces that the culture Dabo Swinney has made over there at Clemson, with the school having a “family atmosphere” that may prove attractive to players and making the older ones want to stay.

Related: ‘He Has To Win’: CFB Analyst Sets Expectations Straight As LSU HC Brian Kelly Writes Cheque Worth $1,000,000

College Sports Network has you covered with the latest news, analysis, insights, and trending stories in college football, men’s college basketball, women’s college basketball, and college baseball!



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