West Virginia NFL Draft Profile: Ryan Mundy

By Darrell Laurant  |   Saturday, March 29, 2008  |  Comments( 0 )

West Virginia Mountaineers
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West Virginia University football fans have good reason to be unhappy with the University of Michigan right now.

After all, that's the school that lured away their former head coach, Rich Rodriguez, at the tail end of last season. It wouldn't have been so bad if Rodriguez had any previous Wolverine ties, but he had spent his entire playing and coaching career in West Virginia. Thus, insult was added to injury.

However, there was also a tradeoff of sorts. Before Michigan took away Rich Rodriguez, the program that new coach Bill Stewart now refers to as "that team to the north" gave the Mountaineers Ryan Mundy.

Mundy had actually graduated from UM, but the Pittsburgh native used a fifth, post-graduate year to transfer to Morgantown. Michigan didn't offer a graduate course in athletic coaching administration, which allowed Mundy to apply -- and be granted -- a transfer waiver.

"It was a tough choice because I had a lot of strong ties up at Michigan but this change was definitely for the better and something that I had to do and something I'm looking forward to doing," Mundy said at the time.

And as it turned out, it was a break for West Virginia. A starter for much of his career at Michigan (while missing a season with nerve damage to his shoulder), Mundy settled in at free safety in Rodriguez's 3-3-5 alignment and wound up with 46 tackles, three interceptions and three fumble recoveries. He also proved one of the team leaders in the lockerroom, despite his "Johnny come lately" status.

Mundy has size, smarts and decent speed. So why wasn't he invited to the NFL Combine? Adam Abramson, blogger for the Website "campus Confidential" wondered the same thing.

"He's bigger than (North Carolina State's DeJuan) Morgan and less than a step slower," wrote Abramson, "bigger and faster than (Alabama's Simeon) Castille and Michael Griffin of Texas, yet he wasn't invited to the Combine and may slip off the draft board. Why?"

Perhaps because of Mundy's shoulder injury, which was serious enough to have ended some players' careers. Still, Mundy didn't hurt himself at WVU's Pro Day, running a 4.55 40 and bench pressing 225 pounds 21 times.

"I'm an athlete," he has said. "I can do pretty whatever's asked of me, whether it's in coverage of getting in the box to make tackles."

Ironically, after a few weeks of training in Florida, Mundy was working again with the strength and conditioning coaches who helped him at West Virginia.

The thing is, they're now at Michigan.

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