I pat you on the back, and you shit right in my hand.’ That’s when I think I knew we had graduated to being on a different level because before, if I would’ve done that, he would’ve cussed me out from the time the DB caught the ball ‘till I went back on the field the next time we got the ball.”

West Virginia man

Page 20 of Rodriguez’s 2005 offensive playbook contains the lyrics to John Denver’s “Country Roads.”

Rodriguez forced his players to continue the West Virginia tradition of singing the song after wins, even when many of them didn’t seem too enthused about the old country song. But one look at the chorus makes Rodriguez’s connection to the song clear.

“Country roads, take me home/ To the place I belong/ West Virginia, mountain momma/ Take me home, country roads.”

After spending four years coaching outside of his home state, the state where he played college football, the state where he met his wife, Rodriguez returned in 2001 as the head coach of the Mountaineers.

The whole state was excited. At his introductory press conference, Rodriguez joked it was the first press conference he ever saw people tailgating for.

But by 2006, Rodriguez’s warm feelings toward his alma mater begun to deteriorate. He was offered, but turned down the Alabama job. Rodriguez’s stay in Morgantown was largely because Mountaineer boosters facilitated discussion between Rodriguez and the West Virginia administration.

Rodriguez’s strained relationship with the administration culminated with a meeting at West Virginia President Mike Garrison’s house last Dec. 16.

Ken Kendrick, a West Virginia booster and managing general partner of the Arizona Diamondbacks, talked on the phone with Rodriguez as he drove up to Garrison’s house. Rodriguez sounded hopeful, and he had reason to. Rutledge, who was driving Rodriguez to Garrison’s house at the request of someone on West Virginia’s side, said Rodriguez had been told all of his requests for the Mountaineer football program would be met. But that wasn’t the case.

“It was no to everything … I wanted to know the answer to — at least a maybe,” Rodriguez testified in his deposition for the lawsuit West Virginia filed. “I didn’t even get a maybe. I got a no.”

After leaving Garrison’s house, Rodriguez called Kendrick.

“This is basically what he said,” Kendrick said. “ ‘Ken, I have three bosses. I have an athletic director who I cannot trust. I have a president of the university who I do not trust. And I have the governor of the state who I also do not trust.’ ”

Kendrick tried to persuade Rodriguez to give Garrison another chance because the president was new and maybe couldn’t act immediately because of that.

“He said, ‘I just don’t trust these guys,” Kendrick said. “ ‘I’ve got to be here every day, and you don’t. And I don’t want to work for people I can’t trust, and as a result, I’m going to leave.’

“It’s hard to communicate this to someone who didn’t grow up in this small state, but I did. And while most of us who have gone out and had some achievements in life have had to leave the state to go and have the opportunities that really don’t, for the most part, exist in West Virginia. We all love the state, and we all share a common bond.

“I said, ‘Rich, you have an opportunity, because you are a local guy and have had such great success in West Virginia. You have a chance to do something in life that very few people ever have the chance to do — and that’s become a legend in your lifetime. And by leaving, that opportunity is gone forever.”

The next day, Rodriguez accepted Michigan’s offer.

Michigan Man

Rodriguez met Schembechler once briefly at the annual College Football Hall of Fame banquet but heard Schembechler had mentioned him to people in Ann Arbor.

“For a guy that I didn’t even know or didn’t know me, I thought that was probably one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever gotten in my profession,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez has spent some time since taking the Michigan job to learn about the Wolverines’ history. Stories from the 1969 team, Schembechler’s first, have been particularly interesting to Rodriguez — how unsure they were, but how they rallied to beat Ohio State and win the Big Ten. Does he see some of that same doubt in this year’s team?

“A little bit,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez invited some players from 1969 to talk to his current team.