Submitted photo Former WVU football player Dante Stills was drafted in the sixth round of the NFL draft by the Arizona Cardinals.

MORGANTOWN — On Thursday night, Dante Stills held an NFL Draft watch party at his home in Fairmont.

Turns out, it was holding a birthday party two days before you had anything to celebrate or leaving cookies and milk for Santa Claus before you went to bed on December 23 only to wake up and find nothing but an empty glass and some crumbs, but not presents.

The West Virginia All-American defensive tackle was not drafted on that night.

Nor the next.

But Saturday was Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Easter, Thanksgiving and St. Patrick’s Day all wrapped into one as Stills got to hear his name called all the way from the Sonoran Desert as the Arizona Cardinals took him with the 39th pick of the sixth round, the 213th pick in the draft.

He was right behind someone he’d chased for most of his career, Kansas State’s dynamic running back Deuce Vaughn.

It meant that he will be the third member of the Stills family to sign an NFL contract, following his father, Gary, the great WVU pass rusher from the late 1990s, who made a decade long career out of playing in the NFL, mostly as a special teams force, and his older brother, Darius, who was expected to be drafted but passed over two years ago, signed as a free agent but has had injuries hamper his career.

“Congratulations to Dante and his family on getting drafted by the Cardinals,” coach Neal Brown said. “I’m really proud of all his hard work and perseverance in pursuit of his dream of playing in the NFL.

“This is a well-earned opportunity that he has prepared for and has more than proven that he belongs. I look forward to watching him play on Sundays during his career and wish him the best.”

Not quite so fortunate was another Mountaineer legacy, wide receiver Bryce Ford-Wheaton, who was preceded at WVU by the great running back and WVU Hall of Famer Garrett Ford Sr. and his son, Garrett Jr.

Ford-Wheaton did all he could to be drafted, turning in a big senior season that included a number of highlight reel plays, showing surprising speed at the NFL Combine from some who comes in a package that is 6-feet, 4-inches tall and 225 pounds.

He will sign, of course, and if he winds up in the right spot with his ability, determination and smarts, he will find a way to make an NFL roster, being very similar in character to David Sills V, the former Mountaineer whose sticktoitiveness has allowed him to build a career.

One cannot read much negative into Ford-Wheaton falling through the cracks, however, because the problem would seem to be not so much with the player as with the program.

It is fair to suggest that the number of players attracted by the NFL is at least one way to evaluate a collegiate program. If you don’t believe that, ask them at Georgia or Alabama or Ohio State.

While mid-majors may celebrate having one person drafted in seven rounds, that is no cause for celebration for a Power 5 team and certainly not WVU since Dana Holgorsen left after an 8-4 record in the 2018 season, his last team had five players go in the 2019 NFL Draft.

It was a talented group headed by Will Grier, David Long, Gary Jennings, Yodny Cajuste and Trevon Wesco.

True, he didn’t leave Neal Brown much to work with coming in and then COVID hit to complicate the situation worse, but in the four drafts since Holgorsen’s exit WVU had only four players drafted. The first year was offensive lineman Colton McKivitz and safety Kenny Robinson, who actually didn’t play for Brown, being dismissed from the team for what was termed academic fraud.

Instead of transferring, he went and played in the XFL and then was drafted by the Carolina Panthers.

The next year, in the 2021, Tony Fields Jr. was the only Mountaineer drafted while last year WVU was shut out in the draft.

When compared with their Big 12 opponents, you can say there is a talent gap. This how many players the Big 12 teams had drafted over the three years coming into this year:

Oklahoma 17, Baylor 11, Texas 8, Oklahoma State and TCU 7, Texas Tech and Iowa State 6, West Virginia and Kansas State 3 and Kansas 2.

This season TCU, who went to the national title game, had 8 drafted, followed by Oklahoma with 5, Texas and Kansas State with 4, Texas Tech and Iowa State with 3, Oklahoma State with 2 and WVU with 1.

That gap has shown up in the won-lost record, but the question is whether or not WVU isn’t drawing quality talent to the school or if they aren’t developing it right. Either way, it has to change for results to change and in this era of NIL and the transfer portal, that may prove to be a major problem.