NFL 2009 Draft Profile: Pat White (West Virginia) QB/ WR

There is little doubt that Pat White is a talent. This past week White concluded a brilliant career at West Virginia in splendid fashion leading the West Virginia Mountaineers to a 31-30 victory over the North Carolina Tar Heels at the 2008 Meineke Bowl. It was White's fourth Bowl game victory in his tenure at West Virginia, a tenure that has seen White rush for more yards than any other college quarterback in NCAA history. In 49 career games for the Mountaineers, White gained 4,480 yards (and 47 touchdowns) on the ground, to go along with the 6,049 yards and 56 touchdowns in the air. The punctuation mark on his fabulous college career was the 332 yards and winning touchdown he threw in the tightly contested Meineke Bowl game against North Carolina.

Not that there weren't other gems along the way this season, including a November 22 game against the Louisville Cardinals in which the versatile quarterback only threw 11 times for 122 yards and two scores. In that game White clearly gave an illustration of what he could do on the ground by rushing for 200 yards and three touchdowns, scoring on long runs of 66 and 43 yards along the way in the Mountaineer victory. There was also the game against Pittsburgh in 2006 where White pulled off a historic double by becoming only the 8^th player in the history of the NFL to both rush and throw for over 200 yards in a game.

Yet come the 2009 NFL Draft, Pat White might be a man without a home. At 6-0, 190 lbs he is nowhere near the prototypical size of an NFL quarterback, and the NFL seldom provides a happy home for undersized quarterbacks. Those that do succeed, like Doug Flutie, take years to develop their craft elsewhere (in Flutie's case, the CFL) before making it in the NFL. Add to that the fact that West Virginia's Offense has not allowed him to gain valuable time in a Pro Style scheme, and it becomes easy to see that White's future could be elsewhere on the football field.