NEHLEN IMPRESSES
Walk-ons have to thread the needle, and they don’t get any mulligans. If the scholarship guy at your position catches five passes, you better catch 10. If the scholarship guy makes a nice downfield block, you better put your guy on the ground. Drop a pass or fumble the ball and you might as well sign up for the witness protection program. “They have nothing invested in you,” Abraham once told me. “They spent a lot of time on that top recruit from Florida, so naturally they are going to give that guy more opportunities.” It only makes sense. So, when a walk-on in the back of the line passes his way to the front of the pack he must be really doing something right. That is exactly what Ryan Nehlen has done this spring. Nehlen has caught just about everything thrown his way, the junior performing well in the two scrimmages leading up to the Gold-Blue game when he made five catches for 79 yards. What people saw from Nehlen last Friday night is what the coaches saw all spring from him. “I’m impressed with the kid,” said receivers coach Shannon Dawson. “He’s got a great attitude.” Nehlen’s got nice size at 6 feet 2 and weighing more than 200 pounds, and a 39-inch vertical that is among the best on the team, according to strength and conditioning coach Mike Joseph (get Ryan out on the basketball court and he can throw down any type of dunk you want him to do). He also has decent straight-line speed running in the low 4.6s, sometimes hitting the high 4.5s, making him one of the better athletes on the team. Basketball was actually Nehlen’s first choice for most of his high school career until a shoulder injury prior to his senior year forced him to reconsider his options. “I had a good football season that year and I just wanted to come here and play,” he said. Nehlen caught 16 touchdown passes his senior season at University High, earning first team all-state honors and helping the Hawks to the semifinals of the state playoffs. But instead of going to a small college out of high school, Nehlen wanted to go to the same place where his father works (Dan Nehlen is football’s equipment manager), where his uncle Jeff Hostetler was a star quarterback, and where his grandfather Don Nehlen became a hall of fame coach. “I always had aspirations to get on the field and make plays,” Nehlen said. Still, sometimes a guy needs a little crack of light to get noticed and that ray of sunshine came when Dana Holgorsen was hired to run the Mountaineer offense last winter. Holgorsen and his offensive staff didn’t recruit any of the players here so there were no preconceived notions or promises that they had to keep. All they are concerned about is production. Make plays, know the offense, and stay on the field and you’ve got a fair shot to play. “Everybody has a clean slate now and obviously the coaches knew who Tavon (Austin) was or Bradley (Starks), but it definitely helps to have a clean slate and get the opportunity to show what we can do,” Nehlen explained. Nehlen has always been a hard worker, knowing from his experiences hanging around Mountaineer practices as a kid that if you keep plugging away eventually something good will happen. “I think it’s been a little bit of everything – the system (Holgorsen’s offense requires a number of receivers) and I’ve kept on working hard and just tried to mature physically, so when that opportunity did come it wasn’t a waste,” he said. What Nehlen, a class salutatorian in high school, now has to do is come up with a little more accommodating class schedule this fall. Nehlen missed important time this spring because of classes, prompting Holgorsen to frequently tease him about never seeing him around the field. Nehlen had taken such a ribbing from him that he decided to have a little fun with his coach before last Friday’s spring game. “I told them before the scrimmage that I had to leave in 20 minutes,” Nehlen chuckled. “Coach Holgorsen actually thought I was serious for a second.” On a more serious note, that’s a pretty good sign that Ryan Nehlen is on Dana Holgorsen’s mind. The offensive coordinator has said repeatedly that evaluations are still being made and nothing is set in stone, but it might be a good idea for some of those injured guys to heal a little faster because the bus is about ready to pull out of the station. And Ryan Nehlen might be earning himself a pretty good seat for the ride. |
 WVU Baseball Experience in Moore, Okla. |
 Big 12 Championship Report 3 |
 Mountaineers Speak on CNN |
 Big 12 Championship Report 2 |
 Big 12 Championships Report |
 Harrison Musgrave strikes out 14 in TCU victory |
 |
