Steve Slaton 2025 NFF COLLEGE FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME CLASS

Steve Slaton

By Matt Fortuna

Steve Slaton may have been an electric running back who helped usher in a new wave of modern football, but it wasn't until he heard his name called at the NFL Draft after a legendary career with the Mountaineers in Morgantown that he truly realized just how far his skills could take him.

"If you love something enough and you do it enough, you always think you have a chance," Slaton said. "Being drafted is when it cemented me to having a feeling that this would be something that changed my life - not just my life, but my family's life."

"Keep shooting for the moon, shooting for the stars. And to that point, to be finally on an NFL team was (when) this path of 12 years of grinding, not going on spring break, not doing these things, giving up those things (that) an average person wants to have all the time, it satisfies you."

Now, further validation has arrived for Slaton in the form of a NFF College Football Hall of Fame nod. Slaton becomes the seventh former West Virginia player to make the Hall, putting an eternal face on a period that revolutionized college football.

"Just the class I'm going in with - Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, Michael Strahan, Michael Vick - it's just a great class," Slaton said. "These are people I looked up to. To be in this, and to be mentioned with some of these greats, it really puts life in perspective, that your hard work does matter."

Slaton eclipsed the 1,000-yard rushing plateau in each of his three seasons in Morgantown, announcing his arrival to college football with a bang in 2005. He scored six touchdowns in one game, against Louisville. He earned Sugar Bowl MVP honors in a win over Georgia.

"Being part of that (helped) start a winning culture," Slaton said of upsetting the Bulldogs.

Slaton finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting the following season, when he set a school single-season rushing record with 1,744 yards. He left college as West Virginia's career leader in total touchdowns (55), rushing touchdowns (50) and points by a non-kicker (330).

Teaming with head coach Rich Rodriguez and quarterback Pat White, Slaton helped lead the Mountaineers to the most prolific stretch in program history. Slaton and White became just the third pair of teammates to each surpass 1,000 rushing yards in back-to-back seasons.

West Virginia posted the best three-year stretch in program history, going 33-5, which doubled as the best record in the nation across that span. The Mountaineers finished in the top-10 each year of Slaton's career, captured two Big East titles, and won the Sugar Bowl (2005-06), Gator Bowl (2006-07) and Fiesta Bowl (2007-08).

"It's so big in the grand scheme of things," Slaton said of that era. "I make the jokes before about me being a Philadelphia kid not knowing that West Virginia was its own state, thinking it was part of Virginia. That was my initial thought. But once you get there, once you've studied your facts of the real history of running backs we had, just the great players we had at that university, I know there are people that paved the way for me that deserve this recognition as well to be part of a steppingstone for that university. But for me to have it, I'm just happy that era can still live on."

The Levittown, Pa., native exited college with 4,775 all-purpose yards. He was picked by the Texans in the third round of the 2008 NFL Draft and went on to a five-year NFL career. Houston is home for Slaton, who has pursued a culinary career.

"There are so many people," Slaton said of his football influences. "I would say my recruiting coach, Bill Kirelawich. I have to give him a lot of respect for getting down to West Virginia and just staying on me.

"I feel like we joke about it, but I came in an era where there was no name, image and likeness money, no NIL deals that you're going to get. And I stayed with a team in West Virginia where we're blue collar. We're workers. We know how to be a good team. We had to outwork everybody else, and that was our main objective. I give Bill Kirelawich, I give Coach Rod, all my teammates (credit). We battled. The games were easy. Practice was hard."