One of the most intriguing prospects in this weekend's NFL draft is West Virginia quarterback Pat White. A sensational athlete, White dominated the Big East during his college career and enters this weekend as a man without a position. Can he overcome his lack of size and succeed as a quarterback in the NFL? Will he became the latest quarterback-to-wide receiver project and follow in the footsteps of players like Antwaan Randle-El? Or will he bring back the "Slash" position, combined with the recent fad that is the wildcat offense, and become a unique weapon that gives opposing defensive coordinators fits?
Heading into the draft, White has been projected in some circles as a wide receiver in the NFL. During his pre-draft workouts, White impressed with his ability to throw the football at the scouting combine in Indianapolis, while he reportedly took part in some drills as a wide receiver for teams like the New England Patriots (via Christopher L. Gasper of the Boston Globe) in private workouts.
Recently, ESPN's NFL draft guru, Mel Kiper, projected White to be selected by the Patriots in the second round as a wide receiver. Over the years there's been a few teams that have attempted to take athletic -- and often times, undersized -- college quarterbacks, and turn them into wide receivers. How successful is this experiment? Well, let's take a look at some of the players to attempt the position change.
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Not exactly a lot of numbers that jump off the page, but let's go over some of the bigger names.
It's worth pointing out that players such as Hines Ward and Arnaz Battle spent time playing quarterback in college (Ward, for example, once threw for 400 yards in a bowl game at the University of Georgia), but also saw extensive playing time as wide receivers. The players shown in this chart were, for the most part, exclusively quarterbacks at the collegiate level, making the switch to receiver after being drafted/signed by their respective NFL teams.
-- Randle-El has obviously had the most success in the transition after being selected in the second round of the 2002 draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers. Aside from developing into a respectable receiver, he's also been a dangerous punt returner for the Steelers and Redskins (including the playoffs, he has seven special-teams touchdowns in his career) while becoming the only wide receiver to ever throw a touchdown pass in a Super Bowl.
-- In the same draft, and just one round after the Steelers rolled the dice with Randle-El, the St. Louis Rams took a similar gamble with former Nebraska quarterback Eric Crouch and, well, the outcome was the exact opposite, due in large part to a leg injury Crouch suffered in the preseason. He spent some time as a safety and also bounced around the CFL as a quarterback for the Toronto Argonauts.
-- The Oakland Raiders used a seventh-round pick on Ronald Curry, a quarterback at North Carolina, as he developed into a solid player that twice led the team in receptions (2006 and 2007). You could certainly do worse as a No. 3 receiver, and he'll be hauling in passes for the Detroit Lions in 2009.
-- Joshua Cribbs signed with the Browns as an undrafted free agent in 2005, and while he's yet to make much of an impact as a wide receiver, he's blossomed into one of the best kick returners in the NFL.
-- With his combination of size and athletic ability, Matt Jones found himself as a first-round pick of the Jacksonville Jaguars despite not catching a single pass during his college career. After a slow start with the Jaguars, Jones had a career year in 2008, catching 65 passes for 761 yards in 10 games. He was released following the season after some off-field issues.
If White goes forward as a receiver, it's a good news, bad news type of situation. The bad news? More often than not, the player fails to successfully make the transition. There's more Reggie McNeal's and Marques Hagans' on that list than Ronald Curry's.
The good news? The most comparable player to White -- in terms of production in college -- is probably Randle-El. During his time at Indiana, Randle-El was a dynamic duel threat that became the first player in NCAA history to post four straight 4,000-yard seasons, while also amassing over 11,000 all-purpose yards. White's numbers at West Virginia are very, very similar, and in some cases, better.
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One of the biggest knocks on White, as a quarterback, is his perceived lack of size. He's listed at 6-foot, 195 pounds, which is relatively small for a projected starting quarterback. While it's not all that common, there are examples of "undersized" quarterbacks to succeed in the NFL. New Orleans' Drew Brees, for example, is listed as being 6-foot, 205 pounds, while Jeff Garcia weighs in at 6-foot-1, 205 pounds. And if you want to take a quick trip back in time, you can always point to Doug Flutie and his 5-foot-10 frame.
If there's a team out there that grabs White and sees him as another Brees, Garcia or Flutie, and wishes to take advantage of his athleticism, they can still tinker with him at the receiver position while they wait for him to develop as a quarterback, similar to the way the Steelers utilized Kordell Stewart during the 1995 and 1996 campaigns. After being selected in the second round of the '95 draft, Stewart was asked by the Steelers to run pass patterns during the week in practice, and then they decided that they had to figure out a way to get him on the field during games. During a Week 9 game against Jacksonville, Stewart made his debut rushing two times for 16 yards. A week later, in a 37-34 win against the Chicago Bears, he hauled in his first NFL pass, a 27-yard toss from Neil O'Donnell. When all was said and done, the two-year experiment resulted in Stewart catching 31 passes, rushing for over 300 yards and scoring 11 touchdowns (six rushing, five receiving, one passing). The following season he took over as the starting quarterback.
The Seattle Seahawks have used backup quarterback Seneca Wallace sparingly as a receiver, as he caught two passes for 47 yards during the 2007 season, while he also hauled in two passes for 34 yards during the 2005 postseason.
The possibilities for White are seemingly endless, but like any pick that is made this weekend there's a fair amount of risk involved, perhaps even more than your typical selection. He could turn out to be a unique, perhaps even revolutionary asset, or he could become the next Reggie McNeal. The question, of course, is which team has the guts to roll the dice and see what White can do?
