West Virginia University President Mike Garrison acknowledged that he told Rich Rodriguez that he wasn't sold on the idea of buyouts in contracts, but he denied telling the former Mountaineers football coach and his agent last August that the $4 million buyout clause in Rodriguez's contract would be removed or halved.

Rodriguez, currently Michigan's coach, and agent Mike Brown said in previous depositions for the university's lawsuit seeking a $4 million buyout from Rodriguez that Garrison, president elect when they met on Aug. 24, pledged to remove or halve that provision in the new deal that Rodriguez then signed.

"I did not say anything similar to that," Garrison testified in a June 12 deposition released today. "I did say on some occasion, and I don't believe it was at this meeting, but I had discussions with Mr. Rodriguez about options or alternatives to liquidated-damages clauses. And I conveyed to him that in future contracts, in contracts that would come after this contract, that I would be pleased to explore other options and opportunities.

"I did point out [at that meeting] that we had reduced it, in a year, to $2 million, and that was not previously in the term sheet; that we had given an extended amount of time to pay it back, should it be activated. I did not imagine, quite frankly, any set of circumstances that would exist to activate the liquidated-damages clause, and was never asked if, if Mr. Rodriguez would leave in a year, would it just be worked out. I would have been surprised by that question."

Garrison gave his account in a 10-hour deposition day just six days after he announced he was stepping down as president over backlash from faculty, various alumni, students and media after his administration was found to have improperly awarded a master's of business administration degree to Heather Bresch, daughter of West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin and COO of the Mylan Inc. overseen by the Mountaineers' largest athletic donor, Milan Puskar.

In his testimony for the Rodriguez suit, the outgoing president portrayed the coach as "very distraught" and depressed in the fortnight after losing to Pitt Dec. 1 and losing a chance at the national-championship game. He referred to Rodriguez using profanity in their final Dec. 15 meeting when talking about the state and his status as its homegrown, university-educated coach.

Garrison quoted the coach, hours before officially announcing he was accepting the Michigan post, as saying: "he no longer [felt]. . . West Virginia was, quote, 'so [expletive] special.' And that [was] because of the outpouring of what he felt was negativity after the December 1 game, that he was very dejected by that. I do agree that the [post-Pitt] negativity was, in large part, unfounded.

In a telephone interview today, Dusty Rutledge, then the Mountaineers' video coordinator who drove Rodriguez to that meeting and said he sat in the same room with the two, denied Rodriguez either swore or raised his voice.

"Let alone that night, he has never said that," Rutledge said. "They never talked about what place was special, what wasn't special. That's a lie." He also disputed Garrison's contention that Rodriguez wasn't clear about previously discussed wishes for the program: "Yeah, he was: texbooks, pay raises, [tickets for high-school coaches]. . . Rich got out a list."

Added Rutledge, who followed Rodriguez to Michigan where he serves as an external-relations assistant: "At some point, the people are going to have to realize that maybe, just maybe, Coach Rodriguez is telling the truth. It's funny that all the major players in this whole deal [are exiting] -- Mike Garrison, president, gone; Craig Walker, chief of staff, gone; [Steve] Farmer, Board of Governors, steps down; . . . [retiring Athletic Director] Ed Pastilong, about to be gone. It sounds to me like there are no weapons of mass destruction."

In other portions of the deposition, Garrison said:

• He went into the Dec. 15 meeting with some frustration. "I thought at least I would be afforded a phone call or a discussion before I heard about [Rodriguez's day-earlier interview with Michigan] on the news. . . . I was not prepared to give him a commitment on things like a Web site or $5 coaches tickets at that time [items among a Rodriguez wish list that the university started investigating after his August contract signing]. To me, it seemed that the discussion was far more importantly focused on my real surprise that he was engaged in meaningful, apparent negotiations the day before with another university."

• The purpose of that meeting, as it was explained to Walker and relayed to him, was that Rodriguez "wanted to come over, quote, 'to tell me he was staying and that he just needed a hug.' " When asked, Garrison couldn't recall if he hugged Rodriguez or not. When Rodriguez left the president's mansion, Garrison said, "I wasn't very hopeful [about him deciding to stay], based on what he said to me." Twelve days later, in a decision Garrison said he made along with Board of Governors chairman Steve Goodwin and Legal Counsel Alex Macia, the university filed suit seeking the $4 million buyout.

• Rodriguez suggested to him that the governor should be less involved with the football program.

Also giving a deposition was Steve Farmer, an outgoing Board of Governors member who described himself as a "facilitator" in the negotiations that resulted in new deals for Rodriguez and basketball coach Bob Huggins in the past 18 months. Farmer said he long has been a proponent of one more athletic-department change at West Virginia, at least: getting rid of Deputy Athletic Director Mike Parsons, the second-in-command to longtime Athletic Director Ed Pastilong.

"I mean, [Pastilong] and I just had a major disagreement on that point," Farmer said in a June 10 deposition, also released today. "Oh, I have counseled the athletic director that I think Mike Parsons should fired; I've counseled [outgoing President Mike Garrison] that I think Mike Parsons should be fired.

"I don't think he's good for the athletic department. . . in the way in which he operates his responsibilities. For instance, what I have described as the culture of 'no.' I mean, if there's a question, the answer from Mike Parsons is 'no.' It's not, 'Well, what do we need to do to figure that out, or is that a good idea or a bad idea?' [It] is 'no.' I think we could have somebody in that position in the athletic department that would be better for the athletic department."

Farmer, a Charleston, W.Va., lawyer, also said he was the one who arbitrarily arrived at the $4 million buyout figure in the first place, amid limited negotiations to try to keep Rodriguez from taking the Alabama job in December 2006. He remains greatly surprised that Rodriguez left 53 weeks later.

"One year later, he's coaching at Michigan. I don't know how we got from . . . ," Farmer said, interrupting himself. "I mean, when we talked about the buyout he first told me, 'I don't want a $4 million buyout and you don't need it, Steve, because you have my word, I'm staying here for life.' I said, 'Well, then if I have your word and you're going to stay here, then you don't need to be concerned about it.'

"One of the things I liked about him was I thought he had been a good advocate for the program. . . . He had gotten the athletic department to invest money in facilities and plant. . . . Some days you win, and some days you lose, and in a state like West Virginia sometimes you have the money to do what you want to do and sometimes you've just got to tough it out and find the money and those sorts of things. So I thought we had made a big commitment to Rich and we had honored it and, you know, I was surprised that he would leave us."

In other depositions done earlier this month but released today:

• Deputy Athletic Director Mike Parsons said that neither he nor Pastilong negotiated the term sheets or contracts for Huggins or Stewart, though added that they offered "some input. . . in the early stages." He said the completion of Huggins' lifetime contract, in particular, "was handled by the president's office." Stewart's contract remains incomplete and in the hands of university administration, he added.

• Board of Governors member and Morgantown businessman Perry Petroplus testified that a still-emotional Rodriguez -- "he wasn't playing straight for awhile. . . his thinking was clouded" -- called him late one night after the Pitt loss and talked of university administrators failing to deliver the long-discussed issues of textbook sales, free tickets to high-school coaches, a Web site and assistant salary boosts. "He had four or five issues that he said were paramount," Petroplus said. "I said, 'Rich, please be patient. It will take time, nothing happens quick around here.'"

Petroplus added that Rodriguez felt both fans and the administration were turning against him: ". . . He got hate mail or something, he said, and some [people] administration-wise didn't console him. And he needed consoled."