The West Virginia football program hasn’t retired many numbers. Only two quarterbacks have gotten the honor. In 2021, WVU retired No. 9 for the 30-years-ahead-of-his-time phenomenon known as Major Harris. Second, as of today, the Mountaineers will retire No. 5 for the incomparable Pat White.
White won four bowl games in four years with the Mountaineers, including a win over Georgia in the Sugar Bowl (played that year in Atlanta) and a victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl. He also authored a win over Georgia Tech (and Calvin Johnson) in the Gator Bowl, despite trailing 35-17 in the fourth quarter.
Here’s just a small taste of what he could do. (One of my favorite Pat White highlights didn’t happen on the field.)
White finished his four-year career with a record of 35-8. He threw for 6,049 yards and ran for 4,480 — a career average of 6.5 yards per carry. He generated 103 total touchdowns running and passing.
NBC’s Devin McCourty, who faced White three times while playing for Rutgers, called him “unstoppable.”
“He was the guy that you thought you had a good game plan for,” McCourty said. “On paper, everything was covered and you knew how they were going to attack you. Then the moment came to make the play on him, and it never happened. He made you miss or he made the great throw against good coverage. He was unstoppable.”
White entered the NFL at a time when the wildcat quarterback was becoming very popular. Drafted 44th overall by the Dolphins in 2009, he made cameo appearances in 13 games as a rookie. A January 2010 concussion that left him unconscious would be his final regular-season appearance.
White later played in the UFL, had a short stint with Washington, and finished his career in the CFL.
Regardless, White became one of the all-time greatest college football players, at any school. And if he were playing today, he likely would be scooped up by one of the big-money programs after only one year in Morgantown.
That’s really the saddest part of the story. White played at a time when college football players weren’t getting paid. He never got anything close to the value he generated for West Virginia or for college football generally.
Retiring his number is an appropriate gesture, even if the total debt owed by the entire state to White is far greater than that.
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