MORGANTOWN — There are plenty of ways for college football teams to collect talent in the modern era. There’s the conventional high school prospect. There’s the junior college route. There’s also now the transfer portal, which makes it easier to procure experienced college players.

West Virginia University football coach Rich Rodriguez doesn’t care which way his coaching staff finds them and brings them into the program. All he wants is the best players they can possibly recruit.

“I don’t have a particular formula that’s so many high school guys, so many juco guys and so many portal guys,” Rodriguez said. “I told the coaches … just get the best players you can get.”

The Mountaineers used all three avenues to fill out its 2025 signing class. WVU brought in 24 high schoolers, four junior college players and 31 transfers. There is plenty of experience within those transfer players. Of the 31, 24 are either fourth- or fifth-year seniors.

That’s both a blessing and a curse. Those players know what it takes to be college athletes, but their time in Morgantown will be short.

That’s just the way it has to be, Rodriguez said.

“We hope they have more than one year, but if all we have them for is one year, we’ll take them for one year,” he said. “Back in the day, you might not have done that, but nowadays, you almost have to do that.”

And when a team brings in a lot of new faces with a short shelf life, Rodriguez said it’s important that they enter a scheme they can acclimate to quickly. So the plan becomes creating a scheme that is both simple and effective.

“You have to do a good job of being able to have that one-year or two-year guy be able to help you,” he said. “And don’t be too complicated. You don’t want to be the smartest guy in the room and have all kinds of schemes and stuff like that. Just get guys who can play and give them something they can execute.”

NOTES

• The Mountaineers are looking for a new center with the graduation of Brandon Yates, and Rodriguez is casting a wide net among his offensive linemen to find that person.

There is only one center on the field at a time, he added, but having several who can do the job on the roster is always a good idea.

“I think there are four or five that are getting snaps,” he said. “I think you always have to rep that many. You can never have too many centers, too many guys who can snap.”

On WVU’s first day in pads Saturday, Rodriguez said he saw only two bad snaps in the practice. Errant snaps had been an issue throughout the 2024 season. The linemen are also learning an entirely new scheme during that quest to be starting center.

“That’s the hardest position to play,” Rodriguez said, “because you have to do all the stuff we do in our offense.”

• West Virginia is also searching for running backs to fill the rotation. Jaheim White, who led WVU last season with 845 yards, is back. Yet the next two players on the yardage charts, quarterback Garrett Greene (751 yards) and running back C.J. Donaldson (734 yards), are gone. Greene graduated and entered the NFL draft as a wide receiver. Donaldson, who led WVU with 11 rushing touchdowns, transferred to Ohio State.

The second-leading returning rusher on the roster is quarterback Nicco Marchiol, who ran for 120 yards and two touchdowns in 2024.

Rodriguez expects White to have a good year, as his skill set fits WVU’s system. He’s also looking at redshirt freshman Diore Hubbard, who had one carry against Oklahoma State before shutting it down for the season, and is hopeful for a couple of transfers – Tye Edwards, who ran for 1,012 yards last year at the University of Northern Iowa, and L.J. Turner, who ran for 1,224 yards and 13 touchdowns last year at Division II Catawba College.

Rodriguez, while he likes what he sees, isn’t ruling out dipping into the transfer portal after the spring season.

“I’d like to have three guys that I know are ready to roll,” Rodriguez said. “I think there’s some talent there. We may have it in there, but we may need to bring in another guy as well.”