West Virginia is expected to bring Rich Rodriguez back to his home state as the Mountaineers’ head coach, 17 years after he and the school suffered a messy breakup at the end of a successful and entertaining seven-year run, a source close to the negotiations said told The athletic one.

Rodriguez completed his second season as head coach at Jacksonville State on Friday night, leading the Gamecocks to their first Conference USA title with a 52-14 win over Western Kentucky on Friday night.

The 61-year-old from Grant Town, W.Va., was one of the forefathers of the fast-paced, spread-option offense and used it to turn West Virginia into a national contender with one of the most exciting teams in the country from 2001 to ’07. Rodriguez posted a 60-26 season record with three double-digit wins in his final three years.

West Virginia was looking for a replacement for Neal Brown, who was fired after six seasons at the school, and found him in a reunion that seemed impossible when Rodriguez left the Mountaineers for Michigan in December 2007.

Rodriguez’s departure came at a particularly difficult time for West Virginia, less than a month after the second-seeded Mountaineers were defeated 13-9 by Pitt in their regular-season finale, costing the team a berth in the BCS Championship Game to play national title.

Then he and the school got into an ugly legal battle over a $4 million takeover. West Virginia said Rodriguez owed the school after agreeing to a new contract just four months earlier.

West Virginia filed a breach of contract lawsuit and ultimately settled with Michigan paying $2.5 million of the buyout and Rodriguez paying $1.5 million in installments.

Rodriguez spent three difficult seasons at Michigan, going 3-9 in his first season and never really seeing eye to eye with the administration. As Rodriguez attempted to adapt the Wolverines’ roster to his style of play, Michigan made little progress. He was fired after an embarrassing 52-14 loss to Mississippi State in the Gator Bowl, leaving Michigan with a 15-22 record.

After taking a year off and working in television, Rodriguez was hired by Arizona. At least at the beginning it worked well. The Wildcats posted a 26-14 record in his first three seasons, winning 10 games and reaching the Fiesta Bowl in 2014.

The program then declined and the end of his term was once again turbulent. A former administrative assistant accused Rodriguez of sexual harassment in a lawsuit that was ultimately dismissed. After a three-month investigation by the school, Rodriguez, who admitted to an extramarital affair, was fired.

Rodriguez spent 2019 as offensive coordinator at Ole Miss and landed as an assistant at Louisiana-Monroe in 2021.

Jacksonville State hired Rodriguez to help the program transition to the Football Bowl Subdivision, and he delivered nine consecutive winning seasons.

Now he returns to the scene of his greatest successes as a coach. The hard feelings he left behind are long gone as West Virginia looks for sustained success in the Big 12 after 13 years of mostly mediocre results.

(Photo: Dave Hyatt / Gadsden Times Special / Imagn Images)