Dan Scott Interview: Rich Rodriguez

During Rich Rodriguez’ two years at Clemson, the Tigers set 69 school records on the offensive side of the football.

by TigerNet Staff - Tue Jun 15 11:22:19 GMT-04:00 2004

CLEMSON -- Former Clemson offensive coordinator Rich Rodriguez was a recent guest on SportsTalk with Dan Scott. SportsTalk can be heard from 9 a.m.-12, Monday-Friday, on WCCP-Fm, 104.9 in upstate South Carolina. Rich Rodriguez was hired by West Virginia from Clemson on Nov. 26, 2000. He served two seasons under Tommy Bowden as offensive coordinator and associate head coach. During Rich Rodriguez’ two years at Clemson, the Tigers set 69 school records on the offensive side of the football. The 1999 offense averaged 403 yards per game, just the third team in Clemson history to pass that mark. In 2000, the Tigers upped that total to an amazing 436.8 yards per game, with 416 total points scored and eight 400-yard total offense games. Clemson ranked among the NCAA top 15 in four different team categories; the Tigers earned berths in the Peach and Gator Bowls during Rodriguez’ tenure. Listen to the full Rich Rodriguez interview Here: Real Audio - Windows Media Selected Quotes Talk about your time here at Clemson with Tommy Bowden. I had a great experience with Tommy (Bowden). I think he is not only a great football coach, in my opinion, but he is a great offensive mind and an even better person to work with. Fortunately I was with Tommy, Ron West the old line coach now on defense, and Burton Burns together at Tulane. We were together for four years. So not only did we talk a lot football, but we also talked about things in general like philosophy, ways to attack people and ways to practice. It was invaluable for me to learn from all those guys. I still talk to those guys almost every other week. I talk to Tommy about every week. He is the one guy that I call up with a question about offense or a program. He is the first I am going to call and talk to about it because I have such respect for him. It tickled me to death to see how he has it cranked up and has every one excited in Clemson country about the Tigers.

How is the atmosphere in West Virginia compared to when you first got there? We’ve always had a good atmosphere here, and I played here. There is no pro sports, and it is kind of like Clemson where it is a big deal. It’s a smaller town and it’s important to a lot of folks. To be honest, I’ve used Clemson as an example when I am going around talking to our folks and fans. We have some passionate fans but not as many as Clemson. It’s amazing to people when they go down there (Clemson) and see 80,000 folks come to the games at Clemson, and they have 20 something thousand IPTAY members. We would like to do the same thing here at West Virginia. We are doing that on a smaller scale. Where Clemson might have 55,000 to 60,000 die hard passionate fans, we may have 40,000. I would like for us to get to that next level and hopefully if we continue to have success and win a few more games we can get there.