JSU’s Rich Rod: Alabama ‘could blow our minds out for a few million dollars’

Jacksonville State coach Rich Rodriguez said his team would be happy to play Alabama — for the right price.

On the weekly “Rich Rod Show,” which Eli Gold hosts every Monday night in Jacksonville, Rodriguez was asked by a caller about encouraging games between Alabama teams.

The caller mentioned the season-opening game between Alabama and Western Kentucky, not the Crimson Tide’s game against an in-state team.

“If they want to pay me $2 million, I’ll be there Saturday and Sunday, play them twice, get $4 million and help our budget,” Rodriguez said. “They can blow our minds out for a couple million dollars, for sure.

“I’ll call my buddy Greg Byrne, the art director, and say, ‘Listen, Greg, we’ll go there for $2 million, and if you want to do it twice, we’ll go there for $4 million and have a great time.’ I’ll even sing “Roll Tide” to them if they want.”

Rodriguez was the head coach at Arizona from 2012 to 2017. He was hired by Byrne when he was the athletic director at Arizona.

The former Jacksonville State coach recalled that when he was at West Virginia, playing a solid Group of Five team “wasn’t a game you really looked forward to.”

“In West Virginia, Marshall was the second Division I team,” Rodriguez said. “We’re in West Virginia, you’re supposed to beat Marshall, right? So I wasn’t a fan of playing them, it wasn’t supposed to be a home-and-away. We ended up doing that and luckily we finished and won.”

According to research by Creg Stephenson of AL.com, Alabama has not played an in-state team other than Auburn since a game against Howard, now Samford, in 1944.

Jacksonville State has scheduled follow-up games with Auburn (2026) and UAB (2027 and 2028), and Rodriguez said he hopes to meet Troy in the future.