The West Virginia head coach delivered an all-timer on his weekly radio show, ripping everything from sparkly shoes to glow-in-the-dark mouthpieces.
PublishedNovember 13, 2025 4:20 PM EST•UpdatedNovember 13, 2025 2:38 PM EST
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Rich Rodriguez has no tolerance for nonsense. And he may have just given us his funniest rant yet.
The West Virginia head coach was supposed to be talking football on his weekly radio show Monday night. Instead, he delivered a full-blown sermon on sideline fashion crimes. Specifically: towels that look like tails, sparkly shoes, glow-in-the-dark mouthpieces and any accessory that makes one of his players resemble WNBA star Angel Reese.
Rich Rodriguez wants his players to stop trying to pull off the Angel Reese single sleeve.
(Getty Images)
It all started with a question about safety Fred Perry being pulled from the field last week because his knee brace was exposed. That was enough to set Rodriguez off.
“I tell our guys I don’t want to be the uniform police, but some of this stuff bothers me,” he said. “Like it’s not a towel they wear, it’s a tail. It’s not like you’re keeping your hands dry with something that’s three inches long and looks like a tail. I’m like, when in the hell did we start putting tails on our guys?”
Rodriguez then moved on to the mouthpiece epidemic — a crisis he clearly takes personally.
“It’s the same thing when you’re watching games, and they got mouthpieces, but they ain’t using ’em. It’s just decoration,” he said. “Not here. We don’t do that. You got a mouthpiece, you put it in your mouth.”
Rich Rodridgues Takes Uniforms Very Seriously
He’s equally offended by the footwear creativity sweeping college football.
“It’s the same way with shoes. You wear the shoes that we give you,” he said. “You don’t go over there to get your own fancy shoes and put some sparkles on it or whatever the hell it is. The shoes Danny Nehlen gives down there, that’s the shoe you wear.”
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But Rich wasn’t close to done yet. He explained that the military wears a uniform. They don’t go into battle wearing all different colors.
“But for some reason in college, we let these kids wear all kinds of glow-in-the-dark mouthpieces and all kinds of crap like that. It drives me crazy,” he said. “I didn’t know if the fans liked that, like, gee, I can’t wait until Jonny comes out with a sparkly blue glow-in-the-dark mouthpiece. He’s my favorite player.’ Are you kidding me?”
Rich Rodriguez when he sees fancy shoes with sparkles.
(Photo by Brien Aho/Getty Images)
Then came his grand finale.
“And it’s like, they wear these leggings, right?” he said. He clarified that an actual injury warrants a knee sleeve. But fashion? Absolutely not.
“If you’re wearing just one long legging on one leg and nothing on the other, you’re just trying to be Angel Reese. That’s what I call ’em. Are you trying to make a fashion statement? She can get by with it. She’s in the WNBA. You’re a football player. No Angel Reese’s here.”
The Mountaineers are currently 4–6 and sit at 13th in the Big 12 standings. But they’d probably be doing a lot better if it weren’t for those darn sparkly mouthpieces.