Latest news with #Mountaineers
Dominion Post
17-07-2025
- Sport
- Dominion Post
The West connection with a lot of "layers" will play a major role for Best Virginia in TBT
MORGANTOWN — The last time Jarrod West shared the Charleston Coliseum floor with his son — also named Jarrod, affectionately known as Lil Jarrod — the two were celebrating winning the 2017 Class A boys' state basketball championship at Clarksburg Notre Dame. The reuniting of the West duo in Charleston takes place at 8 p.m. Friday, as Best Virginia begins play in the West Virginia Regional of The Basketball Tournament (TBT). The elder West is back for his second stint as the head coach for the WVU alumni team in the $1 million winner-take-all tournament. The younger West will once again be under his father's direction as one of Best Virginia's guards. 'Just thinking about that gets me a little emotional,' coach West said. 'The last time I coached Lil Jarrod, we won the state championship. Having this opportunity to coach him again, yeah, it's going to be emotional.' There is a backstory to how Lil Jarrod, a Marshall graduate who also played one season at Louisville in college, ended up on a WVU alumni team, one that goes further than just simply extending an invitation or taking advantage of getting coached by dad again. 'We were at our first practice and Lil Jarrod was looking at that gold and blue jersey,' coach West said. 'He just kind of stared at it a couple of times before putting it on. There was definitely some type of feeling for him at that moment.' There is no story about the elder West that can be told without mentioning his importance to the history of WVU athletics with 'The Shot.' After the legendary Jerry West graduated, the WVU men's basketball program went 38 years without winning consecutive games in a NCAA tournament. 'The Shot' changed all that. It came 27 years ago, as West dribbled down the floor in a second-round game inside the Boise State Pavilion. The 10th-seeded Mountaineers trailed No. 2 seed Cincinnati 74-72. The clock read 7.1 seconds when West got the ball. 'My first reaction was to look up at the clock to make sure we still had enough time,' West said. He dribbled up the floor and got a screen just past halfcourt from teammate Brian Lewin. 'Brian flipped the screen,' West said. 'I was supposed to go left, but Brian flipped it and so I went to the right side. I thought I was going to be wide open.' He was for a moment, until Cincinnati forward Ruben Patterson saw what was developing and he left his man near the foul line to make a mad dash at West. West took a 25-footer, Patterson leaped out at him and somehow that basketball banked in just before the buzzer for a 75-74 victory. He instantly became a favorite son of WVU, and while West played 110 career games for the Mountaineers, in the 27 years that have followed he is never asked about any of the other 109. 'It's kind of neat, whenever I go to the Coliseum now to watch a game, they still show the shot on the big video board,' West said. 'I totally get the place that moment has in the school's history, but to be honest, once you become a father, your own accolades don't really mean much at all.' For West, that meant he got to celebrate the historic 3-pointer for a year. Lil Jarrod was born a year later. Just how much can change in 27 years? Bob Huggins, then the coach at Cincinnati, and on the wrong end of history that day, ended up becoming WVU's coach in 2007. The college town of Boise went from being known as a host of NCAA tournament hoops games to becoming a college football Cinderella powerhouse. And West went from being a famous buzzer beater in college to becoming one heck of a high school coach in West Virginia. Which is where Lil Jarrod comes into the picture. Notre Dame defeated Ravenswood 63-55 to win that 2017 Class A state title in Charleston. Lil Jarrod was more than just the star of the team, he had developed into one of the state's top high school basketball products. Yet WVU, then coached by Huggins, showed very little interest in recruiting the younger West out of high school. 'Just to be completely honest, there's no friction between me and Huggs at all,' coach West said. 'I've been over to his house. He'd always introduce me as the guy who beat him and we would laugh and tell that story. 'There is also a part of me that had a tough time in dealing with WVU not wanting to recruit Lil Jarrod out of high school. That just didn't sit well with me. It hurt Jarrod, too.' Lil Jarrod instead went to Marshall — WVU's in-state rival — where he became a four-year starter who scored 1,204 points for the Thundering Herd. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and college athletes were granted a fifth year of eligibility, the younger West played his final season at Louisville. 'It wasn't until that transfer year that WVU recruited him,' coach West said. 'He ended up at Louisville, which was a different experience for him. 'He never got to wear that WVU jersey, though, and that's just life.' The thought of the younger West playing in the TBT for Best Virginia almost never happened. It wasn't until Erik Stevenson got a call up from the Miami Heat to play in the NBA Summer League that the idea was even entertained. The younger Jarrod West (right) played four years at Marshall and one year at Louisville. He scored 1,400 career points and connected on 254 career 3-pointers. (AP Photo) After all, Lil Jarrod is a Marshall guy and Marshall has its own alumni team, Herd That, playing in the same region. If both teams win their first-round games, the two teams will meet in the second round on Sunday. 'The funny thing is, when I called him, he was in Huntington,' coach West said. 'He was working out with Jon Elmore and all of guys at Marshall.' The obvious connection is the elder West is a WVU hero, and this would be maybe one final chance to coach his son. 'It does create an elephant in the room if we end up playing Marshall's team,' coach West said. 'I'm sure it will feel a little weird for him, because Jarrod truly loves his Marshall family.' And so, we get back to that day of practice when Lil Jarrod stared at the gold and blue jersey. Now a part of Best Virginia, no, it isn't exactly the same as being a Mountaineer, but … 'I don't want to speak for my son, but there's probably some sense of justification for him,' coach West said. 'It probably feels good for him to finally be associated with the school I went to. It probably feels a little weird for him. There's a lot of layers to it.'
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
West Virginia football lands recruit commit named SirPaul ‘Jesus in Cleats' Cheeks
The West Virginia Mountaineers have officially added the greatest name in the history of their football recruiting. SirPaul Cheeks committed to WVU on Tuesday. Even better, he goes by the nickname "Jesus in Cleats." Advertisement Potential blasphemy aside, that's pretty sweet. SirPaul is a running back from Chesterfield Varina High School in Virginia. He's 5-foot-9 and 185 pounds, and his other finalists were Virginia Tech, Kentucky, Pittsburgh and Minnesota. In his junior season, Cheeks had 1,495 all-purpose yards and 18 touchdowns to go along with six interceptions. Cheeks also runs the 100-meter dash, with a personal best of 10.63 seconds.
USA Today
12-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Joe Osovet discusses playoffs in fourth year as Heritage's head coach
Former Tennessee assistant football coach Joe Osovet will begin his fourth season as head coach at Heritage High School in Maryville, Tennessee. Osovet served as tight ends coach for the Vols in 2020. He also served as Tennessee's Director of Player Development (2018) and Director of Football Programming (2019) under head coach Jeremy Pruitt. In 2024, Osovet and the Mountaineers went 5-5. Heritage, however, failed to qualify for the TSSAA Class 5-A playoffs, going 0-4 in Region 2-5A play. The Mountaineers were 3-7 in 2023 after going 4-6 during Osovet's first season in 2022. He inherited a team who went 0-10 in 2021. Osovet discussed the 2025 season and Heritage competing to make the playoffs with Vols Wire. "This is the year at Heritage," he said at KFOA media day. "We're excited, but this is the year that we have to make the playoffs. When I got here, we started seven freshmen, and now, those freshmen are seniors." Heritage will open its season against Clinton High School on Aug. 22 at Dragon Stadium in Clinton, Tennessee. Clinton is coached by Jake Dawson, who was Osovet's one-time assistant. The two also worked together under Pruitt with the Vols. Follow Vols Wire on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter).
Fox Sports
10-07-2025
- Sport
- Fox Sports
Rich Rodriguez's return as coach at West Virginia is a homecoming, too
Associated Press FRISCO, Texas (AP) — Rich Rodriguez has more gray around the temples than the last time he was at West Virginia, nearly 20 years ago when he bolted for Michigan as one of the hottest coaching prospects in college football. Two more head coaching stops and plenty of losses later, Rodriguez is more than just back at West Virginia. He's home again, in the state where he was born and raised, for a second tour at his alma mater. 'I know where the bodies are buried and the traps are laid and kind of understand the environment,' Rodriguez said Wednesday during Big 12 media days at the headquarters of the Dallas Cowboys in the northern suburb of Frisco. 'But then again, times have changed.' Rodriguez speaks of a different conference — it was the Big East back then — and the rapidly changing landscape of college athletics, along with the money West Virginia has spent on facilities that wowed the 61-year-old when he got a good look at the campus for the first time in 17 years. Times have certainly changed for a coach who was the youngest in the country as a 24-year-old at Salem in 1988, and two years later took over at tiny Glenville State not far from a hometown that is just 20 miles from the WVU campus in Morgantown. There was the humbling experience starting in 2008 at Michigan, where Rodriguez was fired with a 15-22 record after a three-year stint that began with the first back-to-back losing seasons for the Wolverines in 46 years. Next was a six-year stay at Arizona that ended with a winning record but under the cloud of an investigation over claims of sexual harassment and a hostile work environment. Rodriguez took a five-year break from head coaching before joining Jacksonville State, where the nine wins in each of his three seasons led to a reunion with the Mountaineers. 'I'm a smarter and better coach than I was a week ago, let alone 20 years ago,' Rodriguez said. 'I feel like 20 years ago, we had some success and that maybe helped me get some respect in getting this job. But I think if I didn't win at Jax State the past three years, I wouldn't have had this opportunity. I think we're better than we were back then.' Rodriguez led West Virginia during easily the best three-year stretch in school history. After consecutive 11-2 seasons, the Mountaineers had a chance to qualify for the national championship game in 2007 but lost the regular-season finale at rival Pittsburgh, which was a heavy underdog. That stunner sparked an acrimonious departure, with fans blaming Rodriguez's decision on the loss to the Panthers and the coach countering that his relationship with athletic director Ed Pastilong was in shambles while the school was refusing to pay assistant coaches what Rodriguez thought they deserved. West Virginia went after Rodriguez to try to recoup the buyout in his contract. A settlement led to Michigan paying $2.5 million and Rodriguez the remaining $1.5 million. At Rodriguez's reintroductory news conference, a heckler had to be escorted out. And Rodriguez said the administration wondered what the reaction would be. He said he tried not to let that factor into the decision to return. 'There's been a couple of times and somebody's said something here or there and all that,' Rodriguez said. 'And I understand that. It might be better off. If they didn't have hard feelings, maybe they didn't miss you.' Receiver Jaden Bray, going into his second season at West Virginia following two years at Oklahoma State, said he hasn't seen any hard feelings. He has an internship that requires him to work plenty of sporting events, and it's worth noting that the Mountaineers haven't had consecutive winning seasons since 2018. 'When I would be at those events, I'd have fans coming up to me, 'Are you ready for Rich Rod? Is Rich Rod back?'' Bray said. 'They were telling me all these stories about when he was here, how fun the town was.' Rodriguez knows how he can quiet the critics. 'I think if you learn from everything, whether it's good or bad, you've got a chance to win,' Rodriguez said. 'Every decision I make with the program is, does it help us win?' ___ AP college football: recommended Item 1 of 3
Hamilton Spectator
09-07-2025
- Sport
- Hamilton Spectator
Rich Rodriguez's return as coach at West Virginia is a homecoming, too
FRISCO, Texas (AP) — Rich Rodriguez has more gray around the temples than the last time he was at West Virginia, nearly 20 years ago when he bolted for Michigan as one of the hottest coaching prospects in college football. Two more head coaching stops and plenty of losses later, Rodriguez is more than just back at West Virginia . He's home again, in the state where he was born and raised, for a second tour at his alma mater. 'I know where the bodies are buried and the traps are laid and kind of understand the environment,' Rodriguez said Wednesday during Big 12 media days at the headquarters of the Dallas Cowboys in the northern suburb of Frisco. 'But then again, times have changed.' Rodriguez speaks of a different conference — it was the Big East back then — and the rapidly changing landscape of college athletics, along with the money West Virginia has spent on facilities that wowed the 61-year-old when he got a good look at the campus for the first time in 17 years. Times have certainly changed for a coach who was the youngest in the country as a 24-year-old at Salem in 1988, and two years later took over at tiny Glenville State not far from a hometown that is just 20 miles from the WVU campus in Morgantown. There was the humbling experience starting in 2008 at Michigan, where Rodriguez was fired with a 15-22 record after a three-year stint that began with the first back-to-back losing seasons for the Wolverines in 46 years. Next was a six-year stay at Arizona that ended with a winning record but under the cloud of an investigation over claims of sexual harassment and a hostile work environment. Rodriguez took a five-year break from head coaching before joining Jacksonville State, where the nine wins in each of his three seasons led to a reunion with the Mountaineers. 'I'm a smarter and better coach than I was a week ago, let alone 20 years ago,' Rodriguez said. 'I feel like 20 years ago, we had some success and that maybe helped me get some respect in getting this job. But I think if I didn't win at Jax State the past three years, I wouldn't have had this opportunity. I think we're better than we were back then.' Rodriguez led West Virginia during easily the best three-year stretch in school history. After consecutive 11-2 seasons, the Mountaineers had a chance to qualify for the national championship game in 2007 but lost the regular-season finale at rival Pittsburgh, which was a heavy underdog. That stunner sparked an acrimonious departure , with fans blaming Rodriguez's decision on the loss to the Panthers and the coach countering that his relationship with athletic director Ed Pastilong was in shambles while the school was refusing to pay assistant coaches what Rodriguez thought they deserved. West Virginia went after Rodriguez to try to recoup the buyout in his contract. A settlement led to Michigan paying $2.5 million and Rodriguez the remaining $1.5 million. At Rodriguez's reintroductory news conference, a heckler had to be escorted out. And Rodriguez said the administration wondered what the reaction would be. He said he tried not to let that factor into the decision to return. 'There's been a couple of times and somebody's said something here or there and all that,' Rodriguez said. 'And I understand that. It might be better off. If they didn't have hard feelings, maybe they didn't miss you.' Receiver Jaden Bray, going into his second season at West Virginia following two years at Oklahoma State, said he hasn't seen any hard feelings. He has an internship that requires him to work plenty of sporting events, and it's worth noting that the Mountaineers haven't had consecutive winning seasons since 2018. 'When I would be at those events, I'd have fans coming up to me, 'Are you ready for Rich Rod? Is Rich Rod back?'' Bray said. 'They were telling me all these stories about when he was here, how fun the town was.' Rodriguez knows how he can quiet the critics. 'I think if you learn from everything, whether it's good or bad, you've got a chance to win,' Rodriguez said. 'Every decision I make with the program is, does it help us win?' ___ AP college football:
