By Bob Hertzel
MORGANTOWN — Funny isn’t it, how much time and money and effort is spent on recruiting a class of 19 freshmen football players by West Virginia University when, in reality, no matter how good the class turns out, it doesn’t include their best two recruits.
No less an expert on the matter of recruiting than the Mountaineers’ head coach Bill Stewart said as much on Wednesday as he introduced a class that includes a couple of high profile quarterbacks and a whole bunch of promising receivers, maybe even enough to actually allow Jeff Mullen to throw the ball something like he wants to throw it.
But as good as Barry Brunetti and Co. may be, he being the Parade All-American quarterback out of Memphis’ University High, he can’t match the two recruits that stand head and shoulders above this class, even though they are shorter than anyone in the class.
“The best two recruits we had this year were No. 7 and No. 9,” Stewart said, smiling about it.
For those of you with short memories, No. 7 is a fellow named Noel Devine, a running back with rather startling credentials, and No. 9 is his running mate, slotback Jock Sanders.
When this past football season came to a rather disappointing conclusion, a .500 Florida State outfit winning one last game for the old coach, Bobby Bowden, in the Gator Bowl, it was widely believed that we all had seen the last of both of them and the combined 2,505 yards and 18 touchdowns they accounted for running and receiving.
The NFL seemed to be beckoning and who ever would have believed that they would turn down a chance to move in that direction.
Yet, when it came time to pull the trigger, both put their NFL gun back into the holster and decided to go for the brass ring one more time as college players.
“They bought into the plan,” Stewart said, “and both want to graduate.”
Obviously, the relationship they have with each other, with Stewart and the coaching staff, and with their teammates provided a bond so strong that even the magnetic lure of the NFL could not pull them away.
And if you think that went unnoticed by recruits, you are wrong. As much money as West Virginia spent, including getting a plane from the 1100 Club funds for quarterback coach Jeff Mullen to fly around the country courting quarterbacks like some kind of Donald Trump with a game plan, you are wrong.
That was the example WVU needed, especially as it tries to escape the shadow of three 11-victory seasons under Rich Rodriguez with a different coaching staff, one that has changed the culture for the better.
Of course, it is difficult at this juncture to gage just how much success West Virginia had in recruiting, freshmen being just that — fresh men. They are raw and unschooled, unchallenged athletically at the level they now jump to and unproven being out in the world of their own.
Others, of course, have higher ranking classes. This one at WVU probably isn’t top 25, although it probably should border upon such, but then who really knows what a top 25 recruiting class is?
Stewart put it best when he made this observation:
“We had a 2-star recruit come in here and win four bowls and three MVP awards in those bowls and we had a 5-star recruit come in and I don’t know what he’s doing.”
You probably remember that 2-star recruit. He was a quarterback who everyone else in the world wanted to make a wide receiver.
His name was Pat White.
The 5-star recruit was Jason Gwaltney, a Long Island fullback who was supposed to be the next Jim Brown but who turned out to be the next Charlie Brown. Good grief!
From the sounds of it, West Virginia landed some interesting players, wide receivers galore, many of whom promise to make life miserable for Big East cornerbacks. And there is an offensive lineman, Quinton Spain, who stands 6-5 and weighs 330 pounds who is supposed to be as agile on a basketball court as he is big in shoulder pads.
There defenders who hit from the safety and linebacker position and a defensive end from the junior college ranks who Stewart says was “probably the No. 1 pass rusher in the nation.”
All of them, of course, are right nothing but high school stars, untested and untried, but when you think about it, so, too, were Devine and Sanders, the top two recruits West Virginia landed this year.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com
