MORGANTOWN — West Virginia’s offensive line coach, Rick Trickett, had dinner with one of the new young coaches on the staff, who was helping with the corners. The coach was getting chewed out. Trickett went onto YouTube and found a video of his former coaching partner, Nick Saban, coaching corners. Trickett sent it to the coach.

The next morning, the coach wasn’t too happy and asked Trickett what he was getting at.

“Well, you were getting your ass chewed out every day,” Trickett said to him.

Trickett said the coach came back a couple of days later and apologized to him.

“I’ve always been one, like when I got to Glenville or Jack State, they didn’t have any boards,” Trickett said. “I went to the hardware store and got boards. I’ve always found an answer to the solution. That’s one thing.”

Trickett isn’t short of wisdom and experience. He’s been coaching for 52 years at multiple stops, including for Rich Rodriguez at WVU when Rodriguez was there the first time. Now, Trickett is back, attempting to find a solution to fixing the offensive line, which struggled a lot in 2025, allowing the second-most sacks in the Big 12.

But Trickett didn’t know how much longer he’d be coaching for. He just turned 78 on March 23, and college football had changed a whole lot since he started. Trickett loved coaching, no matter what level it was at. He even went from Florida State, winning national championships, to coaching at Glenville State, just to stay on the sidelines. If there was another opportunity, especially if it was at WVU, he’d strongly consider keeping his whistle.

“I didn’t know if it was a good fit for me to be up on this level or not,” Trickett said. “I really enjoyed those three years I was there with coach Rodriguez at Jack State. I really like Jack State. I had a great time, great people and stuff, but I’m from West Virginia. After talking to coach, I felt like I needed to come back here and get this thing right.”

There was also the fact that a bunch of his family was on staff. Travis Trickett is the offensive assistant coach, and Chance Trickett is the director of player evaluation, coming over from the Los Angeles Rams.

“Well, that’s not all that it’s cracked up to be,” Trickett said. “They had to separate me and Clint about three or four times last year. But it’s fun. It’s not bad. I enjoy it. I just come to work and do my job. They’re involved with something I’m doing. Clint, he was the offensive coordinator, so he thought he was my boss last year. That didn’t fly. It was fun. We had a lot of good times, but there were some intense times.”

On Tuesday, March 24, Trickett took the podium for the first time since 2006 in his WVU dark blue hat that had the two ends of the brim almost touching. Trickett gave it another bend on his way to the mic. He looked out at the audience and wondered why there were so many cameras. Trickett was informed it was for live-streaming purposes, and then said he thought he came just to talk to the “guys” about football.

Trickett is old school like that. But that’s what Rodriguez was looking for in his new offensive line coach. Rodriguez knew Trickett, no matter the age, was the premier offensive line coach in college football. Rodriguez wanted a coach that’ll take things back to the fundamentals, which were lacking last season.

“I don’t see the fundamentals, I don’t see the teaching going on at schools when I go around sometimes,” Trickett said. “Like stance. I’m big on stance and first step, hat placement and all those kind of things, and hands. I don’t think it’s talked about enough.”

At the age of 78, how does Trickett plan to recruit with all the new stats and metrics? He’s leaving the numbers up to Rodriguez because “that’s above my pay grade,” as he said. But Trickett plans to rely on his eyes for a lot of the evaluation process.

Trickett had around six linemen on junior day and didn’t offer any of them before he got to sit with them in a meeting. After he met with each one, Trickett gave out offers.

“Somebody goes out and makes offers and don’t even know the kid,” Trickett said. “Don’t always know everything about him. Don’t know your background. Don’t know if he’s a good guy, bad guy. Does he fit what we want to do? Can he take hard coaching and all that? I run an F.B.I. check on them. I think you got to trust your eyes.”

Through the spring, the focus is on getting his unit jump-started and ready for a full workload when summer rolls around in a couple of months. Trickett’s offensive line room will look a lot different than Jack Bicknell’s from last year, and should be deeper with some talented freshmen, like 4-star Kevin Brown, and some veteran transfers. There are returners like Landen Livingston and Nick Krahe as well.

Trickett said the two lineman the most along so far through four practices are the two linemen who came over from Jacksonville State with him, Amare Grayson and Cam Griffin.

“I’ve only got two of them out there that really know what I really, really want, and how far we have to go,” Trickett said. “There are only two of them out there because they’ve been with me for two or three years. The rest of them are learning.”

There’s no question all of them are learning from one of the great offensive line coaches of college football.

It’s a lot different this time around for Trickett, though. A lot has changed for WVU and college football since he was last in Morgantown over two decades ago. But if there was someone Rodriguez could trust to fix and improve the line, Trickett was his man to call.

“I haven’t changed from then to now,” Trickett said. “I’ve altered a few things and stuff, but I’m still going to demand them. I love what we demanded. I loved them in the past. I think that’s the biggest issue. They haven’t had that until they get to a certain program. If they really love football, they want to play football; most of them, the cream will come to the top.”