Dana Holgorsen Doesn’t Regret Leaving West Virginia: ‘I Had Reasons’

Dana Holgorsen didn’t last very long as the head coach at the University of Houston, getting fired just five years after taking the job. The Cougars won just four games in their inaugural season in the Big 12 Conference, one of which came against West Virginia, as you know, on the Hail Mary as time expired.

Holgorsen took the offseason to vet through his options before finally landing a consulting gig for Sonny Dykes at TCU. He will consume film of opponents during the season and give some tips and advice throughout the week to the assistants and coordinators as they prepare their gameplan. He will not have a role on gamedays.

Thursday morning, Holgorsen spoke with the media at TCU about taking the job, his time at Houston, and other things. He was asked about going from a Power Four school to a Group of Five school, the reasoning behind it, and why he left West Virginia.

“What’s funny is I did it twice. In this profession, you’ve got to take some gambles. When Sonny (Dykes) and I were at (Texas) Tech, we were there together for six years and he had to leave to advance his career. He left to go to Arizona to advance his career. I stayed for two more years and then I had to leave to go to Houston. Kevin Sumlin just got the Houston job and offered me the OC job and I took a pay cut for the same reason Sonny when to Arizona. We were co-coordinators at Tech, but we all know that we weren’t calling the plays. That belonged to Mr. Mike Leach. You had to get away to grow. I did that and two years later I’m at Oklahoma State and three years later I’m at West Virginia, so the gamble paid off. I did it again six years ago when I was at West Virginia in the Big 12 and left to go to Houston. I had reasons why I did that. I had been at West Virginia for eight years and was very successful. But there was a couple of things that I was concerned about that made me do that. I do not regret that. You look at what happened at Houston. I mean, we were 4-8 in the first year in the Big 12 I guess that’s not good enough. But a couple years prior to that in the American, which is why I went there, we won 20 games in two years. We had some success and I don’t regret that either.”

Holgorsen went 61-41 during his eight years at WVU and had two 10-win seasons.

What could those reasons have been? Well, it could be a number of things, but he has stated before that he didn’t feel West Virginia was in a spot to be able to compete in the Big 12 on a regular basis because of its recruiting base. It could have also been the pressure building around his job security following a late season collapse in 2018 with what was believed to be his best all-around team. He probably looked at the roster and knew that it was going to be an uphill battle in 2019 which would put him in danger of losing his job. Plus, Houston is a place he’s always loved and when the opportunity opened up, he felt like he could have more success there with a state rich with high school talent.

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