PITTSBURGH -- Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was perusing the papers stacked around Mark Whipple’s desk years ago when one caught his eye.
It was Whipple’s original evaluation of the 2004 quarterback class, and though Roethlisberger was ranked highly coming out of Miami (Ohio), he wasn’t the highest. That infuriated the young signal-caller.
“He saw the reports on my desk one day, was looking through them,” said Whipple, the former Steelers quarterbacks coach who's now offensive coordinator at Nebraska. “That’s typical Ben when he was young. I told him, ‘Yeah, if you would’ve stayed one more year, you’d have broken all the NCAA records, you would’ve been the first pick in the draft and gone to the 49ers,' which was his team anyways.