Noel Devine was arrested Sunday on one count of strangulation and was being held on a $40,000 bond, a development that immediately put his role with WVU football on hold. Rich Rodriguez said Devine was placed on leave from the Mountaineer football coaching staff as soon as the arrest became known.
The timing made the news land hard for WVU, because Devine had been on the staff as both an offensive analyst and an assistant running backs coach. His arrest came one day after West Virginia Mountaineers beat UT-Martin 52-7 at home, turning what had been a routine follow-up day into a personnel problem for the program.
Jail records said Devine was taken to North Central Regional Jail on Sunday. The records did not spell out the circumstances of the alleged strangulation, leaving the charge itself as the only public detail about what led to the arrest. That gap matters because the decision inside WVU is already split between what has happened and what comes next.
Rodriguez said Devine was put on leave immediately and indefinitely, but he also said any future decision on the coach’s status will wait until more information becomes available. That leaves Devine in a suspended position for now, with the school not committing to any final call until the facts become clearer.
For WVU, the case reaches beyond a single arrest. Devine returned to the school as a coach in January of 2025 after a football career that made him one of the program’s most recognizable former players, with more than 4,300 rushing yards, 29 touchdowns and 98 receptions for 710 yards and two touchdowns. He was inducted into the WVU Sports Hall of Fame in 2021, and he also played in the United Football League and Canadian Football League in the 2010s before coming back to Morgantown.
For now, the practical next step is not a football decision but a legal one. Devine remains held on bond, and WVU has tied any longer-term action to the arrival of more information.
