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

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 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 yesterday among several, the first public comments by university officials about Rodriguez's departure and lawsuit. "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."

Chief of Staff Craig Walker in his deposition echoed Garrison's recollection, saying the president said earlier in June 2007 "he felt incentives were a better contract basis in the future."

Garrison gave his account in a 10-hour deposition just six days after he announced he was stepping down over backlash 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 Mylan Inc., overseen by the Mountaineers' largest athletic donor, Mylan Puskar.

In his testimony, the outgoing president portrayed the coach as "very distraught" 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.'"

Dusty Rutledge, then the Mountaineers' video coordinator who drove Rodriguez to that meeting and said he sat in the room with the two, denied Rodriguez either swore or raised his voice. "Let alone that night, he has never said that," Rutledge said in a telephone interview yesterday. "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 [clear]: textbooks, pay raises, [tickets for high school coaches]. Rich got out a list."

Added Rutledge: "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."

Among the depositions:

• Garrison said he entered the Dec. 15 meeting with frustrations: "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 [wish-list] things like a Web site or $5 coaches tickets at that time. 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." Garrison and Walker each said that university officials remain interested in a plan offered by Rodriguez and a study that Pastilong commissioned a Mountaineer Athletic Club panel to perform: selling the television, radio and Internet rights currently in-house with the Mountaineers Sports Network.

• Farmer, who described himself as a "facilitator" in the negotiations that resulted in new deals for Rodriguez and basketball coach Bob Huggins, said he asked Pastilong and Garrison each to fire deputy athletic director Mike Parsons. "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.'" 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.

• Board of Governors member and Morgantown businessman Perry Petroplus testified that a still-emotional Rodriguez -- "he wasn't playing straight for a while ... 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 athlete textbook sales, free tickets to high school coaches, a Web site and assistant salary boosts. "I said, 'Rich, please be patient. It will take time, nothing happens quick around here.'"