Rodney Gallagher knew he wasn’t going to make any decisions on his future without being thorough.
Once former head coach Neal Brown, the man that recruited Gallagher, was relieved of his duties in December a number of players made the decision to enter their names into the transfer portal.
The Uniontown native wanted to practice patience and didn’t want to do anything before meeting with new head coach Rich Rodriguez.
“Because I needed to meet one-on-one with Rich Rod and just see what his plans were and what his plans were for me. His plans were great for me, and I had no intention to leave,” he said.
Gallagher, who hauled in 26 catches for 388 yards and 2 touchdowns last season, has found out in his first spring working under Rodriguez that he has found even more than he could have expected.
That’s because Gallagher has quickly found himself immersed in the hard edge approach that the Mountaineers demand out of their players.
“I love the hard work. Everybody is getting pushed and that’s what I love about it. At the end of the day, they just want us to be great and help change the program around,” he said.
That’s not something that Gallagher has had at any point in his career so at first it come as a little bit of shock considering Rodriguez immediately demanded things to be done his way. But it didn’t take long for him to realize that the goal is simply to elevate everybody on the roster.
“He really cares about us and really cares about us being better and to get to that next level,” he said.
Gallagher is going to fill the same role as an inside wide receiver in the West Virginia offense, but the junior believes that the fit might be even better for him in this scheme. That’s largely because Rodriguez plans to get him the football in space where he can use his best assets to make plays to help the team win.
One of the things that Rodriguez has done is push Gallagher to be more confident and given his experience over the years coaching it is easy to abide by his advice.
“Every time he gets on me it’s only for the better. I’m coachable so I love to be coached and help me be a better player to get to that next level,” he said.
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