I’m not entirely sure how, but Jim Carty of the Ann Arbor News managed to strike a nerve with a lot of people with what he’s written on his blog this week. I mean this as no offense to Jim, with whom I’ve worked in the past, but based on e-mail and even phone calls people seem to really dislike him and what he’s written.

Of course, the same can be said of me and my apparent agreement with a certain choice of words used by a national radio host yesterday — though I contend I never used the words and only “agreed” with them as I went along with the analogy he was trying to make.

Anyway, Jim did voice the thoughts of many WVU fans Wednesday night with his rather poignant blog posting.

The first – and best – action the new coach could take is calling a press conference to announce he’s paying West Virginia the $4 million buyout that was in the contract he signed.

It’s the right thing to do.

You signed the contract. Live with it.

Yes, maybe you could pay some lawyers to weasel out of part of it, but Rodriguez needs to be about 100 miles from anything that involves weaseling right now.

He should pay the buyout, publicly admit he made some mistakes in the last month or so, apologize to West Virginia and its fans, and promise that the whole experience will cause him to be above question on these matters in the future.