As the legal wrangling in the contentious lawsuit between Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez and his former employer West Virginia University continued, yesterday the field of play shifted to a Toledo-area hotel.

There, the legal team for the Mountaineers questioned Mike Brown, the agent who represents Rodriguez, in a deposition that started at 9 a.m. and didn't end until 7:30 p.m.

Brown said last night he preferred not to comment on the issues covered in the deposition until after his legal counsel had an opportunity to review the transcript.

The proceedings had been scheduled to take place in the law offices of Barkan & Robon, but the attorneys for West Virginia had the deposition moved to a conference room at a hotel.

Rodriguez resigned from his West Virginia post in December. West Virginia sued Rodriguez later that month, demanding payment of a disputed $4 million buyout clause in his contract.

Over the past five months, a bitter feud has played out between the two parties.

Throughout the ordeal, Rodriguez has contended he signed the West Virginia contract under false pretenses and that certain verbal commitments made by West Virginia administrators at the time he entered into the agreement were not met, including a promised reduction or removal of the buyout clause. West Virginia officials have denied those claims.

Rodriguez said in January that both he and his family had been the victim of lies, harassment, and slanderous attacks since he left West Virginia.

West Virginia athletic director Ed Pastilong and Rodriguez have already been deposed. Earlier in the case, Judge Robert Stone of West Virginia's Monongalia County Circuit Court granted a request by the university's lawyers that all of the depositions be held in private, with the judge saying the contesting parties would need a stadium to accommodate the crowd if the proceedings went public.

Rodriguez was deposed last month at a hotel near the Detroit airport, and the transcript of that session has not yet been released. Pastilong's deposition took place in Morgantown.

Pastilong's deposition produced about 200 pages of testimony, and in the transcript from that session, Pastilong said he was not present when Rodriguez signed his contract last summer. Rodriguez contends that promises made to him in that meeting by West Virginia president Mike Garrison and his chief of staff Craig Walker consisted of an end-around maneuver that excluded Pastilong.

Several more West Virginia officials are expected to be deposed in the case by the lawyers representing Rodriguez, while the WVU legal team has indicated it intends to depose Rita Rodriguez, the coach's wife, and Toledo businessman Mike Wilcox, a financial adviser to Rodriguez.