MORGANTOWN — During offensive lineman Xavier Bausley’s recruiting visit with Rich Rodriguez at Jacksonville State, Bausley was handed a form to fill out to allow Rodriguez to speak with him. On the form, one of the questions was” What’s one thing that’s unique about yourself?” Bausley, who is from Dunbar, West Virginia, answered as follows:

“My dad burned all the Rich Rod things, pictures, everything in 2007,” Bausley said while retelling the story. “He put it on fire. Cussed you out.”

Two years later, Bausley transferred from Jacksonville State to West Virginia, a year prior to Rodriguez coming back. The second time around, Rodriguez and Bausley’s father had a good laugh about what his son said after coming full circle.

“I said now if you wouldn’t have burned all your stuff, you might’ve already had some West Virginia stuff, ” Rodriguez said.

Reunions are a theme for the 2025 squad. Bausley is one of a couple of players who transferred from Jacksonville State to West Virginia a year prior to Rodriguez taking the job, creating some interesting conversations.

“I said ‘hey, Xavier, I’m back,'” Rodriguez said. “Are you going to leave again?”

The conversations are mostly out of good fun because a lot of them left Rodriguez and Jacksonville State to move up to a Power Four conference. Safety Kekoura Tarnue was one of them.

“He had nothing to do with it,” Tarnue said. “To me, in my opinion, he’s probably the best coach I’ve played for. Because just seeing how much he gets out of his players, how much he pushes them day in and day out. Not just on the football field, but to be a better person off the field.”

Tarnue didn’t know whether he was going to play another year since he ran out of eligibility, but then he saw online that players were getting granted another year. Shortly after, Rodriguez was named as the coach, so Tarnue gave him a call and told Rodriguez he was going to try and get back to play for him.

“He was like ‘come on, let’s do it,” Tarnue said.

There are eight players, whether they transferred a year ago or this offseason, who played together at Jacksonville State. Wide receiver Jarod Bowie came from the Gamecocks with Rodriguez, and he reunited with players like Tarnue.

“We are all about to be back together again,” Bowie said. “Like the brotherhood we had back together at Jack State.”

Bowie said the Gamecocks do hang out together because that’s who they are most familiar with, but he said the team doesn’t really break off, and they try to include everybody.

“We don’t all hang out with just people who we are comfortable with,” Bowie said. “We all separate. Hang around QBs, running backs, everybody on the team. We keep it all close.”

The former Jacksonville State players are the only athletes who can see if Rodriguez has changed since taking a jump up in levels and coming back to West Virginia. Rodriguez said he’s running things a lot faster now that he’s here, but his players haven’t noticed anything too different from when he coached them at Jacksonville State.

“That’s coach Rich Rod,” Bowie said. “He ain’t going to change for nothing. He is going to do his job and do it very, very well.”

There are pros and cons for the players who’ve already played for Rodriguez before. The pros are that it’s familiar and should be quicker to pick up, and they know that Rodriguez is not afraid to tell you what he thinks. The negative is that he’ll hold you to a high standard, so when you do mess up, there’s no excuse.

For Bowie and Tarnue, the positives heavily outweigh the cons, and there is a reason Rodriguez brought all these Jacksonville State players with him. That’s because he thinks they can help WVU win.

“My expectations for them, because they played, a couple of years ago on defense, they played for Coach Alley in this system, and obviously the guys on offense, the same system, so they should understand,” Rodriguez said. “They’ve done a good job. They are going to help us win.”