Nick Malone’s journey through West Virginia University football began well before he ever played a down for the Mountaineers.
He has worn old gold and blue for a long time, but that wardrobe choice didn’t start walking into the WVU locker room. It started walking into Milan Puskar Stadium and taking a seat in the stands as a young Morgantown kid.
He remembers right before he graduated from Morgantown High School, watching a snowy game and coming to the realization he would be one of those players on the field.
“I remember I was like, ‘I’m going to be there next year. I’m going to be running out with the team. I’m going to be doing this,’” he said. “It’s a surreal moment going from in the stands to playing.”
And Malone is playing as well as anyone on WVU’s offensive line these days. He has grown from a walk-on redshirt to a special teams player to a cog in the OL rotation to, this year, a starter on an offensive line considered one of the nation’s better groups. It has been a long, but fun ride for Malone, who understands more than anyone on the team how much the Mountaineers mean to West Virginia.
Malone joined WVU in 2019 and took a redshirt, beginning his journey as a scout team player helping the rest of the roster prepare for each game. Yet he began earning the coaching staff’s trust as his career progressed. He has played in every WVU game since 2021, starting one in 2021, four in 2023 and all 10 this year at right tackle.
In 2024, he has allowed just one sack in 709 offensive snaps, leads the team with 45 knockdown blocks, has recorded 29 great blocks and an offensive-line best seven effort plays. And after the WVU offense finished fourth in the Football Bowl Subdivision in rushing yards per game, it is 27th in the country this year.
He has done all this acknowledging he likely feels more pressure to perform than most of his teammates. West Virginians who play for WVU often feel that way, wanting to put their best foot forward for their home state.
Malone isn’t just a home-state kid. He’s a hometown kid. WVU football is ingrained even deeper into his spirit. There might be some corners of West Virginia that a home-state kid could get away from the spotlight of being a Mountaineer football player. That’s never the case in Morgantown.
“I feel there’s a lot of pressure, especially being from Morgantown and being from the state,” he said. “Being from West Virginia, you want to be able to represent your state in a way that we win and we do well. You don’t want to have a bad day where they say, ‘Oh, West Virginia can’t produce.’
“I feel there’s heightened pressure, but I think we’ve done pretty well in that area,” he added.
Malone isn’t one to shy away from that responsibility on or off the field. He has been part of some good wins in his time, including some bowl victories. He was the 2022 winner of the Tommy Nickolich Award, given annually to WVU’s top walk-on.
But when asked about his favorite memory in WVU football, he mentioned visiting WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital on Fridays.
“There’s a lot of stuff going on in the world,” Malone said. “And we’re just playing football and people over (at the hospital) have real struggles and things going on. Bringing a light to them and being some sunshine in their day, that’s one of the highlights.”
Malone said his last game at Milan Puskar Stadium probably won’t hit him until he goes through Senior Day ceremonies today – when he daps up his coaches and sees his family, including his mother who always made sure he wore a sparkling clean uniform since his days with the Evansdale Tigers.
Malone was a Morgantown kid with a dream, and he turned that into a reality.
“I think I’ve exceeded my own expectations,” he said. “That’s what I try to do every week, do better than the week before.”
-by Derek Redd
