Former West Virginia and Michigan head coach Rich Rodriguez thinks Alabama should build a statue to honor him.
ESPN recently published an incredible profile of how Rich Rod’s decision to pass on Alabama changed college football forever. Rodriguez was the head coach at West Virginia when the Crimson Tide offered him the job. It looked like he was going to take it, but ultimately stayed with the Mountaineers. The Tide hired Nick Saban, won five national titles and the rest is history. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)
According to the ESPN profile, Rich Rod was at an Alabama spring practice a couple years back and asked why he didn’t have a statue outside the stadium.
“I’m partly responsible for those five national championships because if I had said yes, you wouldn’t have had the greatest coach of all time, Nick Saban, winning all those championships,” Rodriguez told an Alabama booster when joking about how he deserves a trophy.
It truly is crazy how one man’s decision can change so much. The world of college football would look so different if Rich Rod had taken the offer back in December 2006.
No offense to the former Michigan and West Virginia coach, but Alabama never would have won five titles with him.
They probably wouldn’t have won a single one.
Nick Saban put the SEC on lockdown, and has driven away a lot of good coaches because they simply can’t compete with him.
On top of that, he has SEC schools out here firing coaches left and right because they honestly believe they should be Alabama.
None of that happens if Saban sticks with the Miami Dolphins and Rich Rod goes to Tuscaloosa.
Life sure is a crazy thing, and you never know what impact seemingly simple decisions will have years later. Welcome to life in the world of college football.