Posted by John Antonik on Thusday, April 22, 2010
(10:47 am)

	Ellis Lankster

The 2010 NFL draft will take place this Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. in New York City. As many as three West Virginia players could be taken this year, although none are expected to go on day one.

Offensive tackle Selvish Capers is likely to go first, probably somewhere between the third and fifth rounds if some of those draft reports are to be believed. Quarterback Jarrett Brown and wide receiver Alric Arnett are also expected to be among the 256 players taken this year.

Last year, all three players (Pat White, Ellis Lankster and Pat McAfee) selected wound up sticking with teams. McAfee, despite being picked in the seventh round as a punter, was a strong candidate to make the Colts because specialists are rarely drafted. Lankster, taken two spots ahead of McAfee (220th overall) by the Buffalo Bills, was much more of a long shot to make it.

West Virginia has had several long shots wind up making teams. Last year, Lankster became the 16th WVU player drafted 200th or lower to make an NFL roster.

The longest of the long shots was Weirton defensive back Leon Jenkins, taken 405th overall in the 16th round by the Detroit Lions in 1972. Jenkins wound up appearing in four games with the Lions as a backup corner that season.

Running back John Holifield, drafted 328th by the Cincinnati Bengals in 1987, played in three games for the Bengals two years after being drafted in 1989.

And more recently, running back Quincy Wilson (another Weirton guy) was the 219th player taken in the 2004 draft by the Atlanta Falcons. Wilson appeared in four games with the Cincinnati Bengals during the 2006 and 2007 seasons.

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Some WVU long shots have gone on to have long and productive NFL careers. Who would have ever thought in 1985 that wide receiver Willie Drewery, the 281st pick that year, would eventually play nine seasons with Houston and Tampa Bay, appearing in 128 games and ranking among the league leaders in punt returns in 1991 and 1993. Willie D’s most productive year as a receiver came in 1991 with Tampa Bay when he caught 26 passes for 375 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

	Jeff Merrow

Defensive end Jeff Merrow was the 263rd player taken in the 1975 draft by the Atlanta Falcons and he went on to have an outstanding nine-year career with the Falcons before injuries forced him to retire in 1983.

“When the draft thing came up I had been hurt (knee) my whole senior year,” Merrow once recalled. “Everything was stacked against me going into the draft but I knew what kind of player I was. When I got done with my senior football season I was disappointed but I knew what the deal was.”

Merrow said when he first arrived at minicamp right after the draft even the team trainer could out run him.

“My knee was a mess,” Merrow said. “Physically, I wasn’t ready for that so when I got to go to training camp they had me behind the free agents.”

Merrow had a couple of great preseason performances, including two sacks in an exhibition game against the Jets, and he wound up making the Falcons roster.

“When I went to Atlanta they had two all-pro defensive ends in Claude Humphrey and John Zook. I kind of worked my way to where I was playing with those guys,” said Merrow.

Running back Bob Gresham, the 201st player taken in the 1971 draft, appeared in 75 career NFL games with New Orleans, Houston and New York before injuries forced him to give up the game in 1976.

“I never really thought I would have the opportunity to play professional football,” Gresham once told me. “I was first drafted by Oakland and that pick went to New Orleans and I ended up playing with Archie Manning.

“My rookie year, I can remember in spring camp I thought I did real well and was going to make the team and then all of the sudden I was put on the Taxi Squad. Then a couple of running backs got hurt,” said Gresham. “About midway through the week before the first game (against the Rams in the ’71 opener), Coach (J.DD. Roberts) said, ‘Bob we’re going to move you up to play this weekend. Not only that, you’re going to start.’ That just blew me out of the water.”

Gresham said the last year playing for the New York Jets was the only unpleasant year he had in pro football.

“I ended up getting hurt and my knee just wouldn’t function,” he said. “I was about all they had at that particular time with the Jets, but the ice packs just weren’t working anymore.”

Other long shots that went on to have productive professional careers include linebacker Steve Grant (253rd player taken in 1992), defensive back Tom Pridemore (236th player taken in 1978) and safety John Mallory (258th player picked in 1968).

“The spring of my junior year going into my senior year we were out on the field and Coach (Jim) Carlen comes up to me and says, ‘John, you have a couple of pro scouts out here looking at you. Don’t you know?’ That was the first time I recall ever having a chance to play pro ball,” Mallory said.

Mallory was never invited to play in any all-star games but was discovered by a Philadelphia Eagles scout, who happened to be a West Virginia alumnus.

“I had no clue that I had a chance at a pro career,” Mallory said. Mallory was one of the league’s most dangerous punt returners in1970, averaging 11.9 yards per return that season.

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	Tom Woodeshick

Philadelphia Eagles running back Tom Woodeshick had one of the more interesting starts to a professional football career. He actually signed with two different teams before it was determined that Woodeshick’s contract with the Buffalo Bills that he signed underneath the goal post at Archbold Stadium in Syracuse was not valid because the Bills did not have his rights at the time he signed (he was signed before the AFL draft).

Woodeshick was taken in the eighth round (102nd overall) by the Philadelphia Eagles and he believes his status as a double-signer may have actually helped him make the team.

“The only reason I got a second look was because of my double signing and they had to go through so much legalities to get me there - that and my speed,” Woodeshick once recalled. “When we ran the forty I was able to beat Timmy Brown. Those are the things that made me noticed early.”

Woodeshick was about to go on the Taxi Squad when backup running back Ronny Goodwin came down with appendicitis.

Woodeshick eventually found a home in Philadelphia’s backfield at fullback when the team traded Clarence Peaks and Ted Dean. In 1968, Woodeshick came 53 yards shy of reaching 1,000 for the season and was selected to play in the Pro Bowl.

“I got to the Pro Bowl in 1968 and damn near cracked 1,000 yards that year,” Woodeshick said. “I got knocked out of the box with 40-some yards to go early in the third quarter in the last game of the season. Then in 1969 it was the same thing. I probably would have been in the Pro Bowl again but I tore my ankle in the next to last game. After that I started having injury problems so I basically had three (good) years. I’d say 85-90 percent of the yards I gained in the pros were in three years.”

Woodeshick finished his NFL career with 3,577 yards rushing and a 4.3 yards-per-carry average.

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Former WVU wide receiver Jerry Porter is attempting to revive his pro career with the Washington Redskins, working out with the team last week in an effort to land a contract. Porter did not play in 2009 after signing a big free agent deal with Jacksonville in 2008. Jerry's most productive season came in 2004 when he caught 64 passes for 998 yards and nine touchdowns with the Oakland Raiders.

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Carolyn Blank is the only West Virginia player performing in the women’s professional soccer league, which began play earlier this month. The two-time WVU All-American is a starting defender for the St. Louis Athletica. Blank has played all 180 minutes so far this season.

Lisa Stoia, who played for the Athletica last year, has opted to devote her full attention to her WVU coaching duties this spring.

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Just like about everyone else, I don’t have the slightest clue what the Big Ten Conference’s intentions are regarding expansion. Some say the league is looking to gobble up the best available TV markets and completely change the landscape of college athletics as we know it.

Others think all of this big talk is just a way of smoking out Notre Dame to get to 12 teams to enhance its television network and create a championship game to keep its football coaches happy.

CBS’s Dennis Dodd seems to be on top of things. He has written several stories and blogs mapping out some of the reasons why the Big Ten is considering expansion and the markets that would most likely be impacted if it does happen.

Pete Thamel in Tuesday’s New York Times interviewed former Syracuse athletic director Jake Crouthamel - the man who helped create the Big East Conference and the man who nearly destroyed it when Syracuse considered joining the ACC (if not for some hardball Virginia politics Syracuse was headed down Tobacco Road). Crouthamel has a pessimistic outlook for the Big East. He also has a pessimistic outlook for the NCAA if four 16-team super-conferences are eventually formed.

Mr. College Football, Tony Barnhart, wrote about expansion Wednesday in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The gist of his talk with former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer, the architect of the league’s current 12-team configuration, was that the SEC would prefer the status quo but if the Big Ten expands beyond one school that would be, in Kramer’s words, “a game changer” and would force the SEC to act.

Here is what we know for sure – nothing. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said as much Wednesday afternoon from the BCS meetings in Scottsdale, Ariz.

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	John Marinatto

The BIG EAST announced Wednesday that Paul Tagliabue, NFL commissioner from 1989 until 2006, will serve as a Special Advisor to the BIG EAST Conference to provide strategic advice on future television arrangements and other priority matters, BIG EAST Commissioner John Marinatto announced. Tagliabue, who currently chairs the Board of Directors of BIG EAST member Georgetown University, will serve the BIG EAST on a volunteer basis.

“We need a new way of thinking. Strategic thinking,” Marinatto told The Boston Globe’s Mark Blaudschun. “We need to be proactive rather than reactive, and develop our assets. Paul’s theory is, ‘Think long-term, think over the horizon.’ ‘Out-of-the-box thinking,’ [Big Ten commissioner] Jim [Delany] is always saying to me, ‘You have to think differently.’"

Marinatto said all options are on the table, including developing a Big East television network similar to the Big Ten’s, adding schools to strengthen the football conference and further developing strategic alliances to maximize revenues.

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They say history repeats itself. Read this article from Sports Illustrated in 1991 about conference expansion: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1140740/1/index.htm.

And for those of you wanting to get a better understanding of how we got to this point, I encourage you to get a copy of Keith Dunnavant’s book The Fifty-Year Seduction: How Television Manipulated College Football, from the Birth of the Modern NCAA to the Creation of the BCS. It’s only 304 pages of reading and is still relatively current (published in 2004).

Have a great weekend!