Skyler Howard

Classroom

Skyler Howard graduated in three years with his bachelor’s degree in communications in August 2015 and has been working on a master’s degree in integrated marketing communications. Howard was named to the 2015 All-Big 12 Conference Academic Second Team, Big 12 Conference Commissioner’s Honor Roll and WVU’s Garrett Ford Athletic Academic Honor Roll.

Character

Howard has been playing with a chip on his shoulder during his entire college career. In high school he received an offer for books from a DIII school and received absolutely no DI offers. He wanted to play quarterback at DI school so he walked on at Stephen F. Austin in the spring of his senior year of high school after graduating early. He later walked on at Riverside Community (that fall), and started the season as the backup. Howard was inserted into the lineup when the team was down by 20 at half of the first game and went on to lead them to 10 wins that season.
Howard came to WVU the next year (2014) as a backup with intentions to redshirt. He was thrown into the lineup in November due to an injury to the starting quarterback and has started ever since. Howard was always told that he was too small, too short and not good enough but always used that as motivation to earn what he was after. He has provided great leadership to the WVU offense and team as a whole. Howard was one of the team’s four captains as a junior and has consistently made the right decisions.

Community

Howard is very active and gives a great amount of his time to the community. He took place in “Once a Mountaineer, Always a Mountaineer” program where current players and former players who are in the NFL come back and have a day for kids to encourage them to live a healthy lifestyle and to be active (similar to the NFL’s Play60). Howard visited patients at the WVU Children’s Hospital and has made numerous trips to the hospital for visits with teammates and on his own.

On his own he has served as a “Big Brother” to a local child, and he and a teammate went and bought food and fed homeless people around town. Howard went along with several teammates and helped build a playground at one of the strength coaches’ churches, signed autographs at a local kickball tournament fundraiser and visited the WVU Medicine Children’s Development center. He also has helped with the Women’s 101-football clinic, teaching women about the game of football.

Competition

No one on the field is more of a competitor than Howard who always wants to perfect his craft. He studies his opponents for hours each week, looking for any advantage he can find and works extremely hard in practice to make sure he and his teammates are in the best position possible each game. Howard is a second-year starting quarterback for WVU and has led the Mountaineers to a 11-6 record (as of nomination time) and two bowl games. He threw for 3,269 yards and 26 touchdowns as a junior and was named the Cactus Bowl offensive MVP after setting season and career highs in completions (28), attempts (51), yards (532) and touchdowns (five). As of mid-September, Howard ranked No. 8 nationally in total offense, No. 12 in passing yards per game, No. 12 in passing yards per completion, No. 12 in yards per pass attempt, No. 23 in completions per game and No. 25 in passing efficiency.