MORGANTOWN \u2014 During offensive lineman Xavier Bausley\u2019s recruiting visit with Rich Rodriguez at Jacksonville State, Bausley was handed a form to fill out to allow Rodriguez to speak with him. On the form, one of the questions was, \u201cWhat\u2019s one thing that\u2019s unique about yourself?\u201d<\/p>\n
Bausley, who is from Dunbar, answered as follows:<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad burned all the Rich Rod things, pictures, everything in 2007,\u201d Rodriguez said while retelling the story. \u201cHe put it on fire. Cussed you out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two years later, Bausley transferred from Jacksonville State to WVU, a year prior to Rodriguez coming back. The second time around, Rodriguez and Bausley\u2019s father had a good laugh about what his son said after coming full circle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said now if you wouldn\u2019t have burned all your stuff, you might\u2019ve already had some West Virginia stuff,\u201d Rodriguez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reunions are a theme for the 2025 squad. Bausley is one of a couple of players who transferred from Jacksonville State to West Virginia a year prior to Rodriguez taking the job, creating some interesting conversations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said \u2018hey, Xavier, I\u2019m back,\u2019\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cAre you going to leave again?\u201d<\/p>\n
The conversations are mostly out of good fun because a lot of them left Rodriguez and Jacksonville State to move up to a Power Four conference. Safety Kekoura Tarnue was one of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had nothing to do with it,\u201d Tarnue said. \u201cTo me, in my opinion, he\u2019s probably the best coach I\u2019ve played for. Because just seeing how much he gets out of his players, how much he pushes them day in and day out. Not just on the football field, but to be a better person off the field.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tarnue didn\u2019t know whether he was going to play another year since he ran out of eligibility, but then he saw online that players were getting granted another year. Shortly after, Rodriguez was named as the coach, so Tarnue gave him a call and told Rodriguez he was going to try and get back to play for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was like \u2018come on, let\u2019s do it,\u201d Tarnue said.<\/p>\n
There are eight players, whether they transferred a year ago or this offseason, who played together at Jacksonville State. Wide receiver Jarod Bowie came from the Gamecocks with Rodriguez, and he reunited with players like Tarnue.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are all about to be back together again,\u201d Bowie said. \u201cLike the brotherhood we had back together at Jack State.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bowie said the Gamecocks do hang out together because that\u2019s who they are most familiar with, but he said the team doesn\u2019t really break off, and they try to include everybody.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t all hang out with just people who we are comfortable with,\u201d Bowie said. \u201cWe all separate. Hang around QBs, running backs, everybody on the team. We keep it all close.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former Jacksonville State players are the only athletes who can see if Rodriguez has changed since taking a jump up in levels and coming back to West Virginia. Rodriguez said he\u2019s running things a lot faster now that he\u2019s here, but his players haven\u2019t noticed anything too different from when he coached them at Jacksonville State.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s coach Rich Rod,\u201d Bowie said. \u201cHe ain\u2019t going to change for nothing. He is going to do his job and do it very, very well.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are pros and cons for the players who\u2019ve already played for Rodrigeuz before. The pros are that it\u2019s familiar and should be quicker to pick up, and they know that Rodriguez is not afraid to tell you what he thinks. The negative is that he\u2019ll hold you to a high standard, so when you do mess up, there\u2019s no excuse.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Bowie and Tarnue, the positives heavily outweigh the cons, and there is a reason Rodriguez brought all these Jacksonville State players with him. That\u2019s because he thinks they can help WVU win.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy expectations for them, because they played, a couple of years ago on defense, they played for coach Alley in this system, and obviously the guys on offense, the same system, so they should understand,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cThey\u2019ve done a good job. They are going to help us win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MORGANTOWN \u2014 During offensive lineman Xavier Bausley\u2019s recruiting visit with Rich Rodriguez at Jacksonville State, Bausley was handed…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":132614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,42137,3188,723,7310,80393,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,80394],"class_list":{"0":"post-132613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-featured-sports","10":"tag-fl","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-jacksonville","13":"tag-rich-rodriguez","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa","20":"tag-wvu-football"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115000738095312199","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}