Jacksonville State coach Rich Rodriguez is set to make a return to his alma mater and take over as the next head football coach at West Virginia, according to multiple reports on Wednesday night.

Pete Thamel of ESPN was the first to report.

Jacksonville State athletics director Greg Seitz told AL.com at 5:41 p.m. that Rodriguez has not informed him of his departure.

The 61-year-old Rodriguez previously coached the Mountaineers from 2001-07, posting a 60-26 record and winning two conference championships. In his second stint at West Virginia he replaces Neal Brown, who was fired on Dec. 1 after seven seasons with the program.

Hired at Jax State ahead of the 2021 season, Rodriguez went 27-10 across three seasons and led the program through a transition into FBS play. Under Rodriguez, Jax State posted back-to-back nine-win seasons, earned its first bowl victory with a 34-31 overtime win over Louisiana in the 2023 New Orleans Bowl and clinched its first FBS conference title.

Jax State is also the first team to reach a bowl game in each of its first two seasons at the FBS level since Marshall did so in 1997 and 1998.

Rodriguez led the Gamecocks to a 9-3 record this season, highlighted by a streak of eight straight wins, and capped off his time in Jacksonville with a 52-12 rout of Western Kentucky to claim the Conference USA championship. Jax State is set to face off against Mid-American Conference champion Ohio in the StaffDNA Cure Bowl on Friday, Dec. 20.

A native of Grant Town, W.Va., Rodriguez nearly won a national championship in his final season at West Virginia, famously flirting with the Alabama job that offseason. Instead of landing in Tuscaloosa, he went to Michigan, where he endured three rocky seasons before he was fired in 2010.

The move back to Morgantown will be his fourth head coaching stint in the state of West Virginia, also serving as head coach at Salem (1988) and Glenville State (1990-1996). He also spent six seasons at Arizona from 2012-2017, going 43–35 and leading the programs to bowl appearances in five of his six seasons.

West Virginia is 6-6 overall and 5-4 in Big 12 Conference play this season, set to face off against Memphis in the Frisco Bowl on Dec. 17.

This story will be updated.