The West Virginia Mountaineer football pro day will be held on March 14th at Mountaineer Field. Geno Smith, Tavon Austin, Stedman Bailey, and Jeff Braun are a few names that will be showing their skills to the scouts. One name that you may not know that will be on the field is Pat White (Yes, THAT Pat White).
After an amazing career with the Mountaineers which saw him finish 6th and 7th In the Heisman Trophy voting in 2006 and 2007, White was drafted by the Miami Dolphins in the second round of the 2009 draft. He was drafted for their Wildcat set after he put up 6049 yards passing and 4480 yards rushing in Morgantown.
He played in 13 games and was 0 – 5 passing and had 21 carries for 81 yards for the Dolphins in 2009, but would be released before the next season. White would then try his hand at the baseball diamond as he was signed by the Kansas City Royals (He had been drafted while at WVU but opted to take the football route instead) but was sent to the fall instructional league and didn’t show for spring training the next season. In 2011, he reported to training camp for the Virginia Destroyers of the UFL but, again, he didn’t make it out of camp and has taken a hiatus from sports since.
What has White so interested in making a comeback has been the resurgence of running quarterbacks that have successfully led their teams to the playoffs. (See Russell Willson and Colin Kaepernick) He has spent time in California training with George Whitfield Jr., who has trained names such as; Cam Newton, Andrew Luck, Donovan McNabb, and Ben Rothlesburger while he was on his 4-game suspension in 2010. They worked on White’s throwing motion and style in hopes to show scouts that White can be more than just the man that ran all over the Big East, Georgia, and Oklahoma.
One question that will be on everyone’s minds will be how White will match with precision passer, Geno Smith. Smith, who was part of a completely different offense compared to White, threw for 11,662 yds in his Mountaineer Career, but only rushed for 342. Smith is expected to go #7 in this year’s draft to the Arizona Cardinals (via NFL Network).
If White has really changed the way he has thrown the ball then it should be interesting to see if there are any takers after the draft. What has people worried, though, is if Geno Smith has an outstanding pro day, can White keep up? Or will White be overshadowed by Smith and lose his chance? This should make for one of the bigger storylines in the upcoming week.
