An emotional Rich Rodriguez was re-introduced to Mountaineer Nation Friday afternoon inside the WVU Coliseum.

Rodriguez, suppressing tears and stopping multiple times to collect himself, spent 15 minutes trying to put into words what has transpired in his life over the past 17 years since leaving West Virginia.

There have been stops in Michigan, Arizona, Mississippi, Hawaii, Louisiana and Alabama before finally returning to the place where it all began.

The Grant Town native played at North Marion High, then at West Virginia University for Hall of Fame coach Don Nehlen before Nehlen gave him his first coaching job as a student assistant in 1985.

That led to a head coaching opportunity at Salem College, and when Salem disbanded its football program, Nehlen brought him back as a graduate assistant coach in 1989.

A year later, Rodriguez became the coach at resource-depleted Glenville State and led that program to the NAIA national championship game in 1993.

Four years later, Rodriguez hitched his wagon to former WVU player Tommy Bowden, and they made stops at Tulane and Clemson before Rodriguez replaced Nehlen at West Virginia in 2001.

Six years, 60 wins and three consecutive top-10 seasons turned Rodriguez into one of the hottest coaching names in the country. Then came the long, strange odyssey that has finally brought him back to Almost Heaven.

Several times, Rodriguez used the word "mistake" to characterize his decision to leave his football team after its 13-9 loss to Pitt that cost West Virginia the opportunity to play in the BCS national championship game - a game Rodriguez's team was good enough to win that year!

Instead, he opted to go to Michigan to coach the Wolverines and left his team to interim coach Bill Stewart, who led the Mountaineers to a stunning 48-28 victory over third-ranked Oklahoma in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.

The raw emotion of that decision was on display today when a protestor was ushered out of the arena before Rodriguez could address the fans and a national television audience on the Pat McAfee Show, broadcast live on ESPN.

"I have thought about this moment," Rodriguez said, pausing another moment to collect himself. "I get to coach at the greatest University in the country. I get to live in the greatest state in the union. And more importantly, I get to be around the greatest people that you can be around. Thank you very much."

Rodriguez thanked his family - his wife, Rita, daughter, Raquel and son, Rhett, who were at his first press conference 23 years ago in a banquet room in the back of the Milan Puskar Center, which is now part of his office overlooking the field.

Raquel and Rhett were just small then and Rhett was actually asleep in his mother's arms that chilly December afternoon.

He also acknowledged his mother, Arlene, his brothers Steve and Kenny, and his mother-in-law and sister-in-law.

"There are some cousins here that I haven't seen in a really long time," he said. "There are so many people here today that were here 17 years ago when I made that mistake of leaving here. It tells me they still love this place, as I do."

He singled out Nehlen, who was sitting on the floor in the second row. He even took a question from former player Avon Cobourne, sitting directly in front of him. Avon now does some podcasting, which is how he was able to snag a credential for today.

And of course, he mentioned McAfee, who turned what has normally been a local happening into a national event.

"I want every player who played for every coach here, every former athlete, you are always welcome to come back home to West Virginia," he said.

Rodriguez frequently interrupted himself to tell stories about some of his players, whether it was Owen Schmitt showing up one day with his mom and a box of VHS highlight tapes for him to watch, or Pacman Jones Facetiming him on New Year's Eve from South Beach in a hotel room with his family.

Rodriguez thanked the administration at Jacksonville State for giving him an opportunity to build that program into Conference USA champions this year.

"It's a great school, and I appreciate them," he said.

He talked about ways he's grown over the years, the dues he's paid to go from being a power conference coach at Michigan and Arizona to a television analyst to an offensive coordinator to an off-the-field analyst to transitioning an FCS program into a Conference USA champion.

"How can I make myself better, not only as a coach but at a person?" he explained. "What can I learn to grow and become the best version of myself and help people become the best versions of themselves? I had to do it by learning from my mistakes, and if you just stay where you are at, you will always be where you are at.

"There is only one school in the country that I can say I coached at where I know the town, I know what it's like to be a student there, I know what it's like to be an athlete there, I know what it's like to live in that state and I know what it's like to work there. That's West Virginia University," he said.

There were many familiar faces among the 2,500 or so milling about today in the Coliseum reminiscing about happier times and dreaming about what lies ahead.

So, what lies ahead?

"Our players will play harder than anybody in the country," Rodriguez predicted. "I say this to my players all the time, 'A lot of people in the stands, they might not know the Xs and Os, but that's okay. They might not know all the schemes that they're watching, but they can sit in the stands, especially at West Virginia, and watch their team and tell if they are playing hard.

"I don't make a lot of promises, but the one thing I promise you, when you watch West Virginia players play, they will play their asses off!"

That's what we remembered about those Rich Rodriguez West Virginia football teams he coached back in the 2000s.

They played hard, they played tough, and most importantly, they won.

Rodriguez indicated today that this will be his last coaching job.

The Mountaineer football fans sitting inside the Coliseum, and the thousands more throughout the country watching on ESPN, are dying for a winner here again.

If he can deliver and get West Virginia football back to where it was 17 years ago when he left, it's going to one helluva ending to an amazing story!