MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — It still requires an interviewer’s persistence to pry much from Noble Nwachukwu. The kid doesn’t waste syllables. He carried the same stoic, almost expressionless, disposition back in high school at Wylie, Texas, which factored into his limited recruitment.
“You couldn’t talk to him on the phone, was hard to talk to him in person,” said West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen. “Just not very sociable.”
Some recruiters couldn’t envision the passive, soft-spoken kid possessing the mean streak needed to play defensive end. Others couldn’t envision the 6-foot-tall tweener fitting their schemes. Some thought he was too raw after not playing football until his junior year.