“We Try To Have A Hard Edge & You’re In Your Tights Dancing?”– WVU Football Coach Rich Rodriguez Bans His Players From Dancing On TikTok

Doesn’t want his players shaking their ass on TikTok.

Rich Rodriguez was recently re-hired as the head coach at West Virginia University, after a bitter breakup in 2007 when the Mountaineers coach left for Michigan following a heartbreaking loss to rival Pitt.

The hard-nosed coach has made it clear that he’s hoping to change the culture of the WVU locker room to make them tougher, give them more of an edge, and hopefully bring the Mountaineers back to a place where they can compete for national championships – something they haven’t really been able to do since his first stint in Morgantown.

And one of the things he’s done has ban his players from dancing on TikTok.

Of course Rich Rod is kind of an old school coach so I assume he’s not super familiar with TikTok anyway. But he knows enough to know that it’s not the image he wants his team sending out to their opponents.

Speaking on his new rule, Rodriguez says he knows his players are going to use the app – but he doesn’t want them on there dancing:

“They’re going to be on it, so I’m not banning them from it. I’m just banning them from dancing on it. It’s like, look, we try to have a hard edge or whatever and you’re in there in your tights dancing on TikTok. It ain’t quite the image of our program that I want.”

I mean, he’s got a point.

Rodriguez says that it’s up to the players what they want to do in their free time, but as long as they’re playing for him, he wants them to focus on football and not getting views on TikTok:

“I’m allowed to do that I guess. I can have rules. Like I said, twenty years from now, if they want to be sitting in their pajamas in the basement eating Cheetos and watching TikTok or whatever the hell, they can go at it, smoking cannabis, whatever. Knock yourself out…

I hope their focus can be on winning football games. How about let’s win the football game and not worry about winning the TikTok?”

That’s just classic Rich Rod. I’ll admit, as a Marshall alumni I’m not really a fan of the guy, but he’s an old-school hardass coach who expects his players to play hard and win football games. And right now, in the era of NIL, it seems like a lot of players are more focused on getting endorsements and sponsorships for social media than they are playing football – something that Coach Rod is going to have to change in his locker room.

He’s clearly had success over his career, most recently at Jacksonville State where he lead the Gamecocks to an 27-10 record in his three seasons there, which included two conference championships and two bowl berths during the school’s first three seasons in FCS play. The guy knows what it takes to win, and knows how to build good football players and teams.

And apparently he doesn’t think dancing on TikTok is part of a winning strategy.

There will be no renditions of Renegade, Savage or Corvette Corvette in the #WestVirginia football team's locker room this year … Rich Rodriguez just revealed he's banned his players from #TikTok dancing.

Full story in HERE: https://t.co/luOje9yvMm pic.twitter.com/eULJsjlTIN

— TMZ Sports (@TMZ_Sports) March 12, 2025