Ole Miss has found their new offensive coordinator.
After Rich Rodriguez was seen in Oxford over the weekend, the Rebels have decided to hire the former Arizona, Michigan and West Virginia head coach to replace Phil Longo as the play caller at Ole Miss.
Rodriguez took a year off in 2018 after he was fired by Arizona following a 7-6 season in 2017. While his last two stops haven’t been quite as successful, Rodriguez spent 7 seasons at West Virginia with a 60-24 overall record, including a Fiesta Bowl win in his final season.
Rodriguez will bring his spread-option offense to Oxford, and he’ll look to solve the red zone woes that Longo’s system failed to address in the past two seasons.
Rodriguez becomes the second new coordinator for Ole Miss heading into 2019, alongside new DC Mike MacIntyre. Longo left for the same position at UNC under Mack Brown, and former DC Wesley McGriff was let go the day after the Egg Bowl.
“Part of building a successful program means surrounding our players with the most talented coaches, and I feel like we have done that with the hiring of Mike Macintyre to lead our defense and now Rich Rodriguez to lead our offense,” head coach Matt Luke said. “Rich has coached at the highest levels of college football and is one of the most innovative offensive minds in our sport. I couldn’t be more excited to get to work with his experience, creativity and toughness as part of our team.”
Rodriguez has received praise for his work with mobile quarterbacks at each stop in his head coaching career including Pat White at WV, Denard Robinson at UM, and most recently, Khalil Tate at Arizona.
He’ll now get a chance to work with Matt Corral and a young offense that has to replace LT Greg Little along with WRs A.j. Brown, D.K. Metcalf and Demarkus Lodge.
