‘Schmittmobile’ bulldozes Georgia Tech

By Darrell Laurant  |   Friday, January 05, 2007  |  Comments( 0 )

West Virginia Mountaineers
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Georgia Tech never refused Owen Schmitt a football scholarship -- but in last week's Gator Bowl, the Yellow Jackets paid the price for all the teams that did.

Driven, as always, by a deep-seated need to prove himself, the former West Virginia University walk-on rushed for a career-high 109 yards in helping the Mountaineers overcome a 35-17 deficit in the second half and outlast Tech, 38-35, in the Gator Bowl.

In one holiday-week fluff story on "favorite Christmas memories," Schmitt recalled a gift that thrilled him when he was six years old and living in Wisconsin. His parents bought him a mini-snowmobile.

Now, Schmitt runs like a snowmobile. Although he has tight end dimensions at 6-foot-3, 250 pounds, he seems shorter and squatter than that when he carries the ball.

"He's the best player in the country no one has heard about," said West Virginia offensive backs coach Calvin Magee.

Until now, that is. Schmitt scored in the first and third quarters, reeled off a 52-yard run on the first play from scrimmage, and delivered some punishing blocks on behalf of quarterback Pat White.

This despite playing on a sore ankle that had bothered him much of the season.

"It if doesn't get better," he told one reporter early in Gator Bowl week, "I might have to break my arm so I won't notice the ankle."

A WVU junior, Schmitt was all-conference as a running back at Fairfax High School in Virginia four years ago, but no Div. I colleges seemed interested. So he went back to Wisconsin and rushed for over 1,000 yards as a freshman for Div. III Wisconsin-River Falls.

Encouraged, he went looking for higher ground, only to be rebuffed again. Maryland's coaches told him -- nicely, they thought -- that he should stay at River Falls and "be all he could be" there.

That may have pondered those words last year when Schmitt burned them for 80 rushing yards.

West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez, a former walk-on himself, offered Schmitt a chance to make the Mountaineer team and earn a scholarship. It didn't take long for him to make an impression, especially in the weight room -- Schmitt has cleaned 525 pounds and squatted 640.

Schmitt also has surprising speed (and a per-carry average of over 6 yards), so when All-American Steve Slaton was hampered by a thigh bruise prior to the Georgia Tech game, the coaches thought seriously about starting him at tailback.

But that would have been like entering a pickup truck in a Nextel Cup race. Schmitt is a beast of burden, a trench warrior who loves contact -- so much so that's he's become legendary for breaking his face masks during games.

That part of his equipment is now steel reinforced.

Next year, Schmitt, Slaton and White will re-form the Big East's most potent backfield for the last time. And although fullbacks rarely make sports page headlines and hardly ever get drafted, you can bet on Owen Schmitt playing on Sundays in the not-too-distant future.

Not that he's taking anything for granted. Ex-walk-ons hardly ever do.

"You've got to have fun with this game," he said. "You never know how long it's going to last."
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