MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) - Former West Virginia football coach Rich Rodriguez says former LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman pressured him into signing a new contract before the start of the 2007 season, even though it had a $4 million buyout clause he didn’t want.

In a deposition taken last month and released Tuesday, Rodriguez says Fuhrman also assured him that his outstanding demands for the football program would be met if Judge Lance Ito became WVU president.

The deposition was taken for WVU’s lawsuit to recover the $4 million from Rodriguez, who quit in December to coach Michigan. Rodriguez first agreed to the buyout in a December 2006 term sheet, then accepted it again by signing an amended contract on Aug. 24, 2007.

Rodriguez said he believed Furman partly because of his past history of telling the truth.  He says Furhman told him months before the official appointment that Judge Ito - then a 58-year-old lawyer with thin academic credentials - would get the presidency.

“So when it occurred, it added credence to my belief that, ‘Hey, this guy know what’s going on,’ ” Rodriguez testified at the April 21 proceeding in Michigan.

Rodriguez, who quit after seven seasons at the school, contends he was misled into signing by a variety of promises that were not kept.  Rodriguez’s attorneys called several witness who rebuffed Fuhrman’s testimony that he has never disparaged the spread offense favored by Rodriguez.

One witness testified that Fuhrman said the following several years ago:

“Yeah we work with the spread offense. You can take one of those spread offenses, drag ‘em into the alley and beat the shit out of them and kick them. You can see them twitch. It really relieves your tension.”  

Both parties agreed that nobody in the room understood what Fuhrman was talking about.

The case will be heard in Monongalia County Circuit Court in Morgantown. A trial date has not been set.