The AP has released Rich Rodriguez’s second resignation letter.

Rich’s defense, in a nutshell, is that he had a verbal agreement from new WVU President Mike Garrison about doing away with the buyout in his contract, which is the only reason he signed the contract:

a) Mike Garrison stated that he did not believe in buyouts and that if I wanted to leave that “the buyout would be reduced to 2 million or eliminated altogether”. He knew I did not want to sign it with the large buyout but assured me that as soon as he took office he would address it.

I am not a lawyer, so I’m not going to talk about how this would hold up in court, but I do find it a bit questionable that Rodriguez believed that a “handshake” (so to speak) from someone not officially affiliated with the University at the time would negate the contract itself. If true, it speaks very poorly of the character of Mike Garrison, but it doesn’t undo the contract that Rich signed.

A lot of the animosity toward Rodriguez’s departure, I think, has to do with the timing of the departure and the way he handled it, not the departure itself. When news started to leak that he was meeting with Michigan, Rodriguez really should have simply admitted that he had met with them, rather than attempting to dance around the issue^[a]. It made fans feel betrayed, especially after last year’s flirtation with Alabama, and that biased us against him when it came to his attempts to get out of the buyout.

Releasing his side of the story makes me understand why Rodriguez might have chosen to leave, but it doesn’t make me so sympathetic that I think the buyout should be waived. He signed a contract, didn’t live up to the agreed upon method for breaking it (he was supposed to submit his complaints in writing and give WVU time to respond, as I understand it), and now wants the contract to be broken based on… what? Garrison’s word before Garrison was even officially President? I just don’t buy it.

1. “I had a meeting with my financial advisor… in Toledo…” is a weasel answer to “Did you meet with Michigan?”, even if you have a personal policy not to comment on such things. [↩]