The what-if machine might not have a better scenario to try and digest than the one between Rich Rodriguez and Alabama football.
What if Rodriguez had not declined the job coaching the Crimson Tide in 2006?
Rodriguez, who appeared set to become the next coach of Alabama after Mike Shula’s firing, decided to stay at West Virginia.
So instead, later in the process, Alabama hired a coach named Nick Saban.
“I used to always tell the story, where’s my trophy in Tuscaloosa?” Rodriguez said recently to Josh Pate. “Where’s my statue outside there? If I had gone there, you probably wouldn’t have those six national championships and all that. That’s what’s so interesting about my journey and how one decision can affect a whole lot of different programs. That’s the sport we’re in. That’s the profession we’re in. I’ve always learned from that too.”
Rodriguez spent one more year with West Virginia with a third-straight 10-win season, then he took the Michigan job, succeeding Lloyd Carr. At Michigan, Rodriguez never won more than seven games. After he was fired in Ann Arbor, Rodriguez went on to coach Arizona from 2012 through 2017. After stops at Ole Miss and Louisiana-Monroe as an assistant, Jacksonville State made him a head coach again where he spent three seasons before returning to West Virginia this offseason for the role he held back in 2007.
