Rodriguez says he’s innocent of accusations

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Former West Virginia football coach Rich Rodriguez is baffled by the stir that his departure has created in his home state, including an investigation into the removal of documents from his office that his attorney says was simply housecleaning for new coach Bill Stewart.

WVU is looking into the scope of the files that disappeared in Morgantown after Rodriguez was hired at Michigan on Dec. 16. The missing files were noticed after WVU coaches returned from the Jan. 2 Fiesta Bowl. Some of the files were backup records of players’ classwork, WVU said.

“There seems to be a campaign to try to smear me,” Rodriguez said Thursday during a conference call with reporters. “I haven’t said anything until recently, when I felt I needed to defend all the false accusations.

“It has just gotten ridiculous over the last couple of days.”

Rodriguez said he only removed personal papers, such as notes about players or his game plans.

“There was an implication that I had all these secret files and I was throwing them away, but it’s simply not true,” Rodriguez said.

“There’s so many inaccuracies and falsehood and innuendo, at some point, you get tired of getting beat up,” he said. “It was that I erased academic files, then the next day, ’Oh no, that didn’t happen.’ The corrections are on page six and the lead story is on page one.”