Noel Devine to join West Virginia coaching staff, per report

Former West Virginia running back Noel Devine is joining his alma mater's coaching staff as an offensive analyst, according to a report Friday from Mike Asti of WV Sports Now.

While Devine is very much a living, breathing person, he'll forever hold a place in college football history as among the first recruits whose highlight tape went viral on the Internet. This was early YouTube, pre-social media Internet.

Devine's exploits at North Fort Myers High School shot him into the place of legend among recruiting junkies in the late 2000s, so much so that the New York Times wrote about him before his senior year of high school. 

Devine starred for the same school Deion Sanders once attended and, as the Times story details, the man who would one day become Coach Prime tried to adopt Devine, with Devine's grandmother's blessing. Devine enrolled at Prosper High School, north of Dallas, but later had a change of heart, drove one of Deion's now ex-wife's Cadillacs to the airport, and returned to North Fort Myers. (My favorite anecdote from the saga, possibly the stuff of legend, was that the Prosper High team was so devastated to have and then lose Devine that they canceled practice the day he left town.)

Anyway, Devine enrolled at West Virginia as the heir apparent to Steve Slaton at a time when Rich Rodriguez's Mountaineers were on the cutting edge of offensive football. He backed up Slaton on a 2007 team that was on the brink of playing in the national championship team, only to fall in the single most devastating loss any team has ever suffered in college football history. (Devine was limited to 11 yards on seven carries in WVU's 13-9 loss to Pitt on Dec. 1, 2007.) Devine left school, and remains, the third-leading rusher in West Virginia history.

Now in his mid-30s, Devine carved out a brief professional career in Canada and, according to his Wikipedia page, last played for the West Virginia Roughriders in a semi-pro arena league back in 2019. His son, Andre, also starred for North Fort Myers High School, and the former WVU's staff lack of interest in him as a recruit caused a falling out between Devine and his alma mater. 

“Looking to find my son a home. It’s sad to see what college football has become with this transfer portal. These coaches leave high school kids left behind to get a kid that’s already developed from the transfer portal. Disappointed in WVU football,” Devine tweeted more than a year ago.

This past season, Devine played for -- wait for it -- Rich Rodriguez at Jacksonville State. 

With Rodriguez's story now coming full circle with his return to Morgantown, the Noel Devine saga is coming full circle as well.

As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.