Photo by: Liz Parke
McKivitz Focused On Finishing What He Started At WVU
July 29, 2019 05:11 PM | Football
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Probably the best way to get a handle on just how far senior Colton McKivitz has come is by looking at the different pictures he's taken since his redshirt freshman year in 2015.
Glancing at his first mug shot snapped five years ago, you weren't completely sure if he was that young, up-and-coming offensive tackle prospect everyone was raving about or if he was destined to become the biggest bass guitarist for a heavy metal band in the history of rock and roll!
But the mop-top haircut is long gone – veteran strength and conditioning coach Mike Joseph saw to that soon after Colton's arrival – and gone, too, are the doubts and uncertainties that often come with an unproven player who grew up in small-town USA.
This year, McKivitz might be West Virginia University's most valuable football player and he's most likely its best NFL prospect.
He was the only Mountaineer named to the preseason All-Big 12 first team and depending upon whom you read, he could become one of the Big 12's most coveted offensive linemen when the pros do their drafting next April.
But that's getting a little ahead of ourselves.
McKivitz said recently that he briefly entertained the idea of turning pro following his junior season once coach Dana Holgorsen left for Houston and he was staring at the prospects of playing for a third offensive line coach in five years.
But McKivitz figured he might as well finish what he started at West Virginia, which seems to be no small feat these days.
"As a senior, you want your senior year to be the year, and my decision about coming back was because I wanted to leave here with things going in a good direction and helping start that direction," he said recently at Big 12 media day.
Perhaps the sting of being involved in another November collapse had something to do with it?
During McKivitz's four years at West Virginia, three as the team's starting right tackle, the Mountaineers have sort of fallen into a pattern of winning games in September and October, rising high in the national rankings and then falling off a cliff in November when championships are determined.
Being known as Mr. October might be great in baseball, but it's certainly not what you want to be known for in college football!
When you think about it, it's really been four years of missed opportunities for the Mountaineers during McKivitz's career, to no fault of Colton's by the way. That was the case during his redshirt freshman year in 2016 when WVU climbed to No. 10 in the polls before a prime-time meeting against Oklahoma at Milan Puskar Stadium on Nov. 19.
It became quite obvious to everyone watching on ABC that the Mountaineers were more pretenders than contenders once the Sooners crossed the goal line a fifth straight time to take a 34-0 lead early in the second quarter.
It was a similar deal a year later in 2017 when the Mountaineers began the season 6-2, rising to No. 22, before Oklahoma State arrived in Morgantown to set up its woodshed.
When the Cowboys were done, so was West Virginia's season.
And then last year, with quarterback Will Grier and all of those NFL guys running around out there, West Virginia was riding the crest of a wave with an 8-1 record following its big, early-November victories over Texas and TCU.
All the seventh-ranked Mountaineers had to do was beat five-loss Oklahoma State in Stillwater and a spot in the Big 12 championship game was guaranteed - which also meant at least a Sugar Bowl berth and possibly much, much more afterward.
But we discovered the hard way that college football games last 60 minutes, not 30, and that 17-point halftime leads in the Big 12 are never safe.
Then a week after that, West Virginia's back-and-forth affair with Oklahoma turned upside down in the fourth quarter when a strip-sack of Grier led to the Sooners' second defensive touchdown of the game and a bitter 59-56 defeat – the eighth loss for WVU in as many tries against Oklahoma since joining the Big 12.
Those were two humongous coulda-shoulda-wouldas in what essentially turned out to be an era of coulda-shoulda-wouldas for Mountaineer football.
"If you're not learning from those disappointments then that's your fault," McKivitz says.
So he's learning and using that knowledge to help the younger guys understand that opportunities are precious in college football, and they can vanish just as quickly as they appear.
"It's been a big change between last year and this year," he admitted. "I think I've changed as a leader. Last year it was just going out there and playing hard and that kind of thing and now as a senior you're kind of looked upon to lead those guys and show them the way.
"Everyone is different," McKivitz continued. "Some guys you can yell at and you don't get under their skin, but other guys don't take it too well. You expect guys to play at that level, and I didn't know how to handle that, I guess. This year, Coach Brown, the leadership things he's doing have definitely taught me how to handle those different types of situations."
It's really been a night-and-day difference for Colton from the moment he arrived at WVU five years ago when his No. 1 goal was simply getting a full scholarship and using his fine WVU degree to become a game warden or a park ranger.
But then he got good - real good.
He was recently on the cover of the Athlon College football preview (how many offensive linemen do you see on those?), and he's one of the older players around whom Neal Brown is going to build his young football program.
You don't get on magazine covers or get picked to represent your school at media day because you are an ordinary player.
And Colton McKivitz is far from being an ordinary football player, which is rather extraordinary considering where he came from playing at tiny Union Local High in Belmont, Ohio, against dudes half his size.
"I would have never thought it's gone this far coming from such a small town," McKivitz admitted. "Josh (Sills) is from a similar place, and he's on that same journey. Sometimes you have to sit back and take a look at things, but you've also got to keep your focus and keep going."
Where Colton McKivitz is headed is yet to be determined, but the pathway that he is creating for himself is becoming much clearer, that's for sure.
Glancing at his first mug shot snapped five years ago, you weren't completely sure if he was that young, up-and-coming offensive tackle prospect everyone was raving about or if he was destined to become the biggest bass guitarist for a heavy metal band in the history of rock and roll!
But the mop-top haircut is long gone – veteran strength and conditioning coach Mike Joseph saw to that soon after Colton's arrival – and gone, too, are the doubts and uncertainties that often come with an unproven player who grew up in small-town USA.This year, McKivitz might be West Virginia University's most valuable football player and he's most likely its best NFL prospect.
He was the only Mountaineer named to the preseason All-Big 12 first team and depending upon whom you read, he could become one of the Big 12's most coveted offensive linemen when the pros do their drafting next April.
But that's getting a little ahead of ourselves.
McKivitz said recently that he briefly entertained the idea of turning pro following his junior season once coach Dana Holgorsen left for Houston and he was staring at the prospects of playing for a third offensive line coach in five years.
But McKivitz figured he might as well finish what he started at West Virginia, which seems to be no small feat these days.
"As a senior, you want your senior year to be the year, and my decision about coming back was because I wanted to leave here with things going in a good direction and helping start that direction," he said recently at Big 12 media day.
Perhaps the sting of being involved in another November collapse had something to do with it?
During McKivitz's four years at West Virginia, three as the team's starting right tackle, the Mountaineers have sort of fallen into a pattern of winning games in September and October, rising high in the national rankings and then falling off a cliff in November when championships are determined.
Being known as Mr. October might be great in baseball, but it's certainly not what you want to be known for in college football!
When you think about it, it's really been four years of missed opportunities for the Mountaineers during McKivitz's career, to no fault of Colton's by the way. That was the case during his redshirt freshman year in 2016 when WVU climbed to No. 10 in the polls before a prime-time meeting against Oklahoma at Milan Puskar Stadium on Nov. 19.
It became quite obvious to everyone watching on ABC that the Mountaineers were more pretenders than contenders once the Sooners crossed the goal line a fifth straight time to take a 34-0 lead early in the second quarter.
It was a similar deal a year later in 2017 when the Mountaineers began the season 6-2, rising to No. 22, before Oklahoma State arrived in Morgantown to set up its woodshed.
When the Cowboys were done, so was West Virginia's season.
And then last year, with quarterback Will Grier and all of those NFL guys running around out there, West Virginia was riding the crest of a wave with an 8-1 record following its big, early-November victories over Texas and TCU.
All the seventh-ranked Mountaineers had to do was beat five-loss Oklahoma State in Stillwater and a spot in the Big 12 championship game was guaranteed - which also meant at least a Sugar Bowl berth and possibly much, much more afterward.
But we discovered the hard way that college football games last 60 minutes, not 30, and that 17-point halftime leads in the Big 12 are never safe.
Then a week after that, West Virginia's back-and-forth affair with Oklahoma turned upside down in the fourth quarter when a strip-sack of Grier led to the Sooners' second defensive touchdown of the game and a bitter 59-56 defeat – the eighth loss for WVU in as many tries against Oklahoma since joining the Big 12.
Those were two humongous coulda-shoulda-wouldas in what essentially turned out to be an era of coulda-shoulda-wouldas for Mountaineer football.
"If you're not learning from those disappointments then that's your fault," McKivitz says.
So he's learning and using that knowledge to help the younger guys understand that opportunities are precious in college football, and they can vanish just as quickly as they appear.
"It's been a big change between last year and this year," he admitted. "I think I've changed as a leader. Last year it was just going out there and playing hard and that kind of thing and now as a senior you're kind of looked upon to lead those guys and show them the way.
"Everyone is different," McKivitz continued. "Some guys you can yell at and you don't get under their skin, but other guys don't take it too well. You expect guys to play at that level, and I didn't know how to handle that, I guess. This year, Coach Brown, the leadership things he's doing have definitely taught me how to handle those different types of situations."It's really been a night-and-day difference for Colton from the moment he arrived at WVU five years ago when his No. 1 goal was simply getting a full scholarship and using his fine WVU degree to become a game warden or a park ranger.
But then he got good - real good.
He was recently on the cover of the Athlon College football preview (how many offensive linemen do you see on those?), and he's one of the older players around whom Neal Brown is going to build his young football program.
You don't get on magazine covers or get picked to represent your school at media day because you are an ordinary player.
And Colton McKivitz is far from being an ordinary football player, which is rather extraordinary considering where he came from playing at tiny Union Local High in Belmont, Ohio, against dudes half his size.
"I would have never thought it's gone this far coming from such a small town," McKivitz admitted. "Josh (Sills) is from a similar place, and he's on that same journey. Sometimes you have to sit back and take a look at things, but you've also got to keep your focus and keep going."
Where Colton McKivitz is headed is yet to be determined, but the pathway that he is creating for himself is becoming much clearer, that's for sure.
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