MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — It is a match made in “Almost Heaven.”

It is Marilyn Monroe marrying Joe DiMaggio. It is Lucy and Desi, Archie and Edith, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce all rolled into a couple that America can’t help but love.

It is Rich Rodriguez and Pat White, Part II, the prototype West Virginia coach and his protege.

History seems to be screaming out that they were born to be reunited from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, not for poorer.

They have been apart far too long and the way West Virginians see it, the hiring of White to Rodriguez’s staff as assistant quarterbacks coach/assistant to the head coach is the last phase of West Virginia’s football program’s outreach to the star that got away from them in 2007.

Talk about a day that will live in infamy.

Rodriguez and White had delivered the Mountaineers to the doorstep of a national championship and then failed to deliver. That the opponent was Pitt made it a hundred times worse than any loss has a right to be and that Rodriguez orphaned White and the program by walking out for Michigan simply was an insult that even Don Rickles at his best could never have delivered.

That White and Bill Stewart were able to conspire to save what was left of the program by beating Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl kept it from becoming a lethal wound, but let’s face it, WVU’s football program has never really had the same feel that it had when White and Rodriguez were quarterback and coach.

But the timing for this reunion was perfect, for we live at a moment where the past towers over the present … where we are spending a year celebrating the life over the death of all-time basketball great, Jerry West, and where White’s running mate from the Rodriguez era, Steve Slaton, is awaiting induction into the College Football Hall of Fame.

It is a time when we look back hoping we are not seeing the past, but instead gazing into what the future will be like.

And for a West Virginia football fan, they prefer to see the joining of Rodriguez and White as the architectural firm that will build that future.

It is difficult to imagine that once White finished chasing his own individual dream of being an NFL quarterback or, perhaps, a major league baseball player, WVU didn’t invite him back into the future and groom him as a future head coach in the football program until now.

But, less than two weeks from his 39th birthday, the deal has been struck to return to the gold and blue path they had strolled down together nearly two decades earlier.

“It’s really special to welcome Pat White back to Morgantown as a member of our football coaching staff,” Rodriguez said in the statement announcing his hiring of White. “He has been involved in some of the biggest wins in program history, and he will be a great presence in our quarterback room. Pat and I have been through so much together, and I am really proud of the quality of coach and mentor to young players that he has become.”

As if on cue, the snow has melted and the temperature is rising as the man who created the offense that White perfected begins the reconstruction of championship dreams.

Interestingly, White is officially the assistant not only to Rich Rod, but his son, Rhett, who is the lead quarterback coach.

But let us offer a word of caution before we all get too caught up in the goings on.

The feeling in the air is that the expectation is to have White and Rodriguez create a quarterback in the same image that Pat White projected.

Certainly, no one would object if that would be the outcome but television’s CSI and NCIS have long told us all that each person’s DNA is unique and Pat White should not be looking to create a clone of himself for that is a project doomed to failure.

Do not go looking for the next Pat White but the first of whomever wins the job. The task ahead of White and Rodriguez and his staff is to build a dual-purpose quarterback who knows more how to win than how to play.

Without a coaching change, the QB job would have belonged to the returning Nicco Marchiol, who opted to stay through the change after serving three years as a loyal back up for Garrett Greene and a sometime starter who never lost a game he started.

Is he Rodriguez’s style of quarter. Well, like White, he’s left-handed, but he is not nearly the nifty runner White was and that is a big part of Rodriguez’s offensive game.

He knows that and went into the transfer portal and brought two experienced quarterbacks who can both run and pass. Jaylen Henderson is a senior with a potential medical rehab year left beyond his season and Max Brown is a junior.

That sets things up for a long hard spring, summer and fall competition for Rodriguez to analyze his three experienced quarterbacks and for White to impart whatever wisdom about quarterbacking in the Rodriguez offense he can impart.

While certainly no one knows what is bubbling under the surface in Rodriguez’s mind as he prepares for oncoming spring ball, understand that just because he didn’t recruit Marchiol doesn’t eliminate him. What it means, though, is that Marchiol and the two experienced quarterbacks come in with a chance to win the job.

With an offensive line to rebuild and defense to reconstruct, make no doubt that the spotlight will fall on the quarterback situation and that Pat White’s presence may make what might have been the most difficult decision awaiting Rodriguez into the easiest.