Mississippi hires Rodriguez for OC

OXFORD, Miss. — Mississippi has hired veteran coach Rich Rodriguez to be its next offensive coordinator.

Rodriguez, 55, has been the head coach at West Virginia, Michigan and Arizona and is regarded as one of the college game’s better offensive coaches. He replaces Phil Longo, who left Ole Miss to take the same job at North Carolina.

The school announced Rodriguez’s hiring Monday. Ole Miss spokesman Kyle Campbell said Rodriguez has a three-year contract that will pay $900,000 annually.

Rodriguez’s hiring represents a significant staff overhaul after Ole Miss finished with a 5-7 record this season. The Rebels also replaced their defensive coordinator, with former Colorado coach Mike MacIntyre taking it.

Coach Matt Luke said in a statement that “building a successful program means surrounding our players with the most talented coaches, and I feel like we have done that with hiring of Mike Macintyre to lead our defense and now Rich Rodriguez to lead our offense.”

Rodriguez was fired from Arizona in January after six seasons amid sexual harassment allegations by a former administrative assistant. The school could not verify the claims, but the investigation still led to his downfall. Rodriguez has denied the allegations.

Odds and ends

Florida defensive end Jachai Polite has decided to leave school early and enter the NFL draft. … Duke quarterback Daniel Jones and linebacker Joe Giles-Harris are skipping their senior seasons to enter the NFL draft. … New Georgia Tech coach Geoff Collins is bringing his offensive and defensive coordinators to Atlanta from his previous Temple staff. Collins announced he has hired offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude and defensive coordinator Andrew Thacker from Temple. The two worked with Collins the last two seasons at Temple.