Bruce Irvin goes from homeless to the NFL
Bruce Irvin was a 235-pound defensive end at West Virginia, which makes him seem like a lightweight for the position.
Before that, he was a safety in his first season at Mt. San Antonio (Community) College (Cal.). But he was moved into pass-rush position in his second season and had 16 sacks.
Before that, Irvin was homeless and in prison, and before that he was a high school dropout.
“I’ve gone over this a hundred-thousand times, I have a different story than a lot of these guys,” Irvin said at the NFL Scouting Combine, in a monumental understatement. “I grew up in a rough neighborhood in Atlanta, dropped out of high school in 11th grade, got in some trouble, ran with the wrong crowd.”
That’s his past, and Irvin is actually more forthcoming about his story than some would expect. He may be weary of telling the story, but he still smiles frequently when recalling his rags-to-riches tale.
His immediate future is to become a situational pass rusher in the NFL.
At 6-foot-3 and even at a bulked-up 245 pounds, Irvin still doesn’t have to size to be an every-down defensive end. But, for the past three years, he’s played with his hand in the dirt, even though he was never a full-time starter at West Virginia. His size projects to linebacker in the NFL, but he’s never played that position, although he’s been working on LB-specific drills leading up to the draft.
None of that matters as much to NFL coaches as the raw skills and physical gifts that enable him to get to the quarterback. He ran a 4.45 40-yard dash at the Combine. That and his 4.05-second 20-yard shuttle and 6.71-second three-cone drill were not only the fastest times among all defensive linemen, they were faster than any linebacker who worked out.
In his first season at West Virginia in 2010, Irvin had 14 sacks. Last season he had 8½, and in his two seasons in Morgantown, Irvin had 29 other tackles for negative yardage.
The Bears have taken an interest — coach Lovie Smith met privately with Irvin after his pro day — but so has just about every other NFL team.
With the Bears, Irvin would likely line up at defensive end in passing situations, but he could eventually project to an outside linebacker in the Bears’ 4-3 scheme or in 3-4 alignments.
He could go as early as the second round on Friday, April 27, and there’s no chance he won’t be chosen by the end of Round 3. That he’s even involved in the process at all is amazing, considering his background.
Irvin’s high school career ended after three games as a sophomore. His grades weren’t good enough to play as a junior, so he dropped out and, as a result, was kicked out of his mother’s home. Two years on the streets ended in an arrest for burglarizing a drug dealer’s home, and Irvin spent a couple weeks in jail.
Late in 2007, Irvin was crashing at a drug house, playing video games, when a former teammate stopped in to make a purchase and convinced him to join him at a prep school for troubled teens in Atlanta.
That’s where things get better, right?
Wrong.
Days after they arrived, the school closed. After all the other students had been picked up, Irvin remained, sitting on a curb in front of the school with his belongings in a garbage bag.
That’s when Chad Allen, a former football player at Atlanta’s Morehouse College rolled up. He convinced Irvin to reconnect with his mother, take the GED and enroll in Butler Community College in Kansas. He didn’t play there but attended classes and then transferred to Mt. San Antonio.
Irvin describes Allen as: “My mentor; a guy who saved my life. I was homeless, and he took me under his wing and let me live with him and train with him. Paid my tuition and it took off from there.”
With his unique talents, Irvin’s ascension still has a long way to go.
* Next up: Wide receivers.