By Stephen Smoot
In both Huntington and Morgantown, fans have gotten very excited, very quickly about their teams’ prospects for standout seasons in 2025. Both programs have hired West Virginia natives to head their programs. Tony Gibson at Marshall and Rich Rodriguez at West Virginia University have brought in a number of Mountain State natives to help them build and guide their teams.
And Franklin High School alumnus Rod Smith, Marshall’s new offensive coordinator, has strong ties to both men, as well as drawing from a deep tradition of football excellence in his home town and county.
Smith will serve as offensive coordinator under Gibson at Marshall. Since Gibson’s career saw Smith rise as a defensive coordinator at WVU, then North Carolina State, he will likely rely heavily on Smith’s experience and input in making the Marshall offense successful.
Smith’s career success came in part from connections to strong coaching trees, starting right at home. “My father, [Gary Smith],” he shared, “was head coach at the time” when Rod Smith starred at Franklin High School.
After graduating from Franklin, Smith went to play for past and future WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez at Glenville State. One of his teammates there, Ripley native Adam Hill, now serves as the head coach and general manager at Huntington Prep’s football squad. Hill said of Smith that he was “always a smart player, which obviously has helped him in his understanding of the game as a coach.”
At Glenville, Smith started to absorb what were then considered revolutionary ideas in how to coach football. Rodriguez, who played defensive back at WVU, based those ideas at first on what he remembered that offenses did that gave him the biggest headaches as a defensive player. That included an up tempo approach, running plays from spread formations, no-huddle as a default tactic, and the read option. A number of high school teams in the Eastern Panhandle still run offenses with many elements of what Rodriguez coached at WVU and elsewhere.
Hill shared that during his career, Smith built on Rodriguez’s ideas, saying, “His reputation as a coordinator has been one of an innovator within the spread up tempo offenses that have taken over college football in the last 20 years.”
Smith’s coaching influences begin with his father, Gary. For one season, he served as offensive coordinator at Franklin. He remembered that “coaching with him was probably the most fun time I had coaching.” Smith recalled how special it was — and still is — to him to have that experience while learning from his dad.
From Franklin High School, Smith took his first job at Urbana in Ohio, an NAIA school at the time. That put it in the same class as Shepherd or Fairmont State. He took a post as a graduate assistant, but they asked him to work as offensive coordinator at the same time. The next year, he got the position full time.
From there, he went to West Virginia Tech to perform in the same role, after that to Clemson to work with Rodriguez, who at the time was Tommy Bowden’s offensive coordinator at the ACC school.
Smith’s career took him to a number of stops. He’s been in the Big East, the Big Ten, the PAC 12, Conference USA, and now the Sunbelt.
When WVU hired Rodriguez, Smith joined him in Morgantown. His career path quickly took him away, then back to Rodriguez’s staff. “I coached Pat White, Steve Slaton. We beat Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl,” he remembered. Fans remember those days as among the best in program history, along with the memorable seasons under Don Nehlen in the 80s and 90s.
When Rodriguez when to the University of Michigan, Smith followed him to the legendary program nicknamed “Big Blue.” And he has continued to work in different programs as an offensive coach and coordinator.
Working with so many different programs, coaches, and players during the past three decades provides powerful perspective. Smith explained that “everybody has their own philosophy, their own spin on how to get things done.” He went on to say that “you learn what you would like to do, but then you see things that make you say, ‘I don’t want to do that.’ It molds and shapes you.”
Joining the Marshall staff feels like a homecoming in a number of ways. Smith shared that he is thrilled to return to and also to represent the Mountain State. Additionally, he said, “Myself and Tony (Gibson) were college roommates and teammates.”
Smith has actually returned to the area this week. Gibson assigned him recruiting responsibilities that will take him all across the greater Eastern Panhandle from Franklin to Jefferson County to scout for the future stars of the Marshall Thundering Herd.
His father’s influence remains strong, regardless of all the college stops Smith made. He says that “we’re going to coach these guys hard and love them even harder.” That means that, as Smith explains, “part of your job is developing the student-athlete academically, athletically, socially, and, hopefully, also in the spiritual realm as well.”
Pendleton County and Franklin remain part of the foundation of values and experiences that have helped to guide his life and career.
He remembered that “when you grow up in Franklin, there’s not a lot to do but play ball, do a little hunting and fishing, and work.” That said, he also shared that “you learn hard work. You learn . . . how you treat people, how you respect people.”
“I’m lucky. I’m fortunate to be from a small town like Franklin,” he added. Smith then said, “I owe it all to my mother and father. They paved the way for me, showed me how to work — showed me how to be a true West Virginian.” As for coaching, he stated that his philosophy was to “take them to a place they can’t take themselves.”