MORGANTOWN — There were a couple of storylines heading into Rich Rodriguez’s first season with West Virginia. The first was obviously Rodriguez’s return, attempting to bring WVU back to glory, but the other big storyline was the roster turnover.

When former WVU head coach Neal Brown was fired and Rodriguez was announced as the next head coach, players jumped into the transfer portal, which happens a lot with a new head coach. Virginia Tech fired Brent Pry after starting 0-3, and a bunch of players entered the portal.

Rodriguez hit the portal hard, patching up holes from the 2024 squad and the ones created when Brown left. He added around 70 players through the portal, which was one of the highest in college football, up there with North Carolina and Oklahoma State.

During Rich Rodriguez’s radio show Monday, Rodriguez said he plans to sign a lot more high school recruits than transfers this offseason.

“We brought a bunch of you [transfers] this year, and we had to,” Rodriguez said. “We got here too late to really sign a big high school class. This year, we’ve been here long enough to sign a really good high school class

Rodriguez said he plans to sign 35 high school players before the start of next season, and only add eight to 10 “impact” transfers, and maybe more depth pieces. It’s still a big change from before this season.

That might be off-putting because some of the most successful teams in college football this year, and last year, hit the portal hard. Ohio State last year, which won the National Championship, reportedly paid $20 million through NIL to bring in transfers, and this year, Texas Tech was reportedly a big spender, had the second-best transfer class and is undefeated atop the Big 12. The other teams with the highest-rated portal classes are LSU, Miami and Ole Miss, who are all having strong seasons.

“If there’s a transfer portal guy and a high school guy, and this transfer portal guy is a lot better than the high school guy, then, we’re going to take the better player,” Rodriguez said. “We can focus more on high school guys because we’ve had time than we did a year ago.”

But, like Rodriguez said during his press conference, high school players are cheaper than transfers.

Rodriguez isn’t worried about being financially behind other schools to afford high-level players. He was completely transparent on where he’d like WVU to be. Rodriguez said $10 million over the revenue-sharing cap of $20.5 million would make the team competitive in the Big 12. Any team can surpass the revenue-sharing cap through NIL because there is still no limit on that.

WVU athletic director Wren Baker announced before the football season that the athletic department reached the revenue-sharing cap. Baker’s also been working on raising finances through the new NIL agency Gold & Blue Enterprises.

“That additional dollars probably needs to be competitive for us to be where the top of the country is going to be, and so we’ve got a plan for that,” Rodriguez said. “Our administration understands that. Our fans, I think, for the most part, understand that. But, there are challenges to do that. We’re in a smaller state with less people, and so we’ve got to be really creative in how we add to that number to be where everybody else is at.”

With no NIL cap, there are teams like Texas Tech and Ohio State, who will shell out money and be way over the cap. Rodriguez understands that.

“It’s probably no secret, if you look at who’s doing really well in college football right now, there are very few of them that are way up in the top, whatever, six or seven or eight or 10 in the country, that don’t have that large number,” Rodriguez said.

It might be deflating hearing the numbers thrown around by these teams, but Rodriguez isn’t fazed. He believes WVU can be competitive through the portal and recruiting with the resources it already has.

“I’m very appreciative of where we’re at,” Rodriguez said. “Our people have been fantastic. Our support has been fantastic.”