Ann Arbor, Mich. ? Rich Rodriguez, who flirted with the Alabama job a year ago, said it took a job of Michigan’s stature for him to leave West Virginia, his home state and alma mater.
“It was a very difficult decision to leave a place where I grew up,” Rodriguez said during his introductory news conference Monday morning. “It was going to take a very special opportunity and a very special place, and I think that’s what this is.”
The 44-year-old Rodriguez represents the first head coach to come outside the “Michigan family” as athletic director Bill Martin put it, since Bo Schembechler in 1969.