Rich Rodriguez is back where it all started at West Virginia this season. The names and faces may have changed, but the school is hoping this is the same guy who guided the Mountaineers to three straight seasons with double-digit wins nearly two decades ago.
For Rodriguez the challenges of being a college football coach have changed a bit since he was last in Morgantown. Obviously, this is the NIL era, but it also means dealing with social media. During a press conference this week Rodriguez described all the distractions facing college kids these days.
WVU HC Rich Rodriguez said it’s more common for players to think about other things than just football. What does he think they’re doing outside the facility?
— Spencer Ripchik (@RipchikSpencer) August 5, 2025
“They’re probably going home watching somebody dance in their tights on TikTok.” (🎥@WVUSports) pic.twitter.com/KRhZv6sVip
"It's just commonplace for guys to think more about other stuff than football," said Rodriguez. "There should be nothing else on their mind during football camp than football. I mean they're going home and I don't know what our guys do when they get a couple hours. They got a couple hours this afternoon. They're probably going home and watching somebody dancing in their tights on TikTok in their locker room. Probably. Or they're watching SpongeBob Squarepants or, ya know, they might be playing video game football. Maybe that's the closest thing they got to football, but I don't know."
The tights on TikTok remains a serious concern for Rodriguez, who already banned TikTok dances back in March:
"They're going to be on it, so I'm not banning them from it," he said Monday. "I'm just banning them from dancing on it. It's like, look, we try to have a hard edge or whatever, and you're in there in your tights dancing on TikTok, ain't quite the image of our program that I want."
Rodriguez seems to have an issue with what people are wearing from the waist down because this isn't the first time he's taken a shot at SpongeBob either. Back in 2014 after Arizona tried an onside kick to the same side of the field twice late in a comeback win over Cal, Rodriguez also negatively invoked the name of the classic Nickelodeon cartoon. Via KOLD.com:
"My mortgage payment is too high to rely on some guys who might be watching SpongeBob SquarePants," Rodriguez said of that decision. "They are both smart kids, but we make the call based on alignment."
For some more historical perspective, Spongebob premiered two years before Rodriguez first became a head coach at West Virginia in 2001. Nautical nonsense is obviously not something the coach is interested in his players seeing.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as West Virginia Coach Rich Rodriguez Still Has Concerns About TikTok and SpongeBob.
