With the 2026 football season drawing closer, West Virginia’s list of most important players keeps rolling on, and the next name up is a newcomer who has already made a strong impression in Morgantown.
Senior safety Andrew Powdrell lands at No. 13 on the staff’s aggregate ranking, with the votes split at Andrew at 10th, Chris at 16th, and Mike at 13th. The list is not meant to sort out the roster’s most talented players. It is built around impact - the players whose play will matter most to how the season unfolds.
Powdrell’s path to WVU has been a steady climb. He started at Montana State in the FCS ranks, where he spent two seasons and logged nearly 1,000 snaps across his freshman and sophomore years.
In that span, he posted 53 tackles and eight passes broken up, and he earned second-team All-Big Sky honors during his second season. He was also part of a Montana State team that reached the FCS national title game.
From there, he moved on to UNLV last year and started all 14 games for a Rebels team that won 10 games and finished as Mountain West runners-up. He finished that season with 60 tackles, including 1.5 for loss, along with five passes broken up before entering the transfer portal again and landing at West Virginia.
What really pushed Powdrell into the spotlight after arriving in Morgantown was the buzz around his testing numbers. A photo of a board inside the WVU facility circulated, showing multiple 4.32 40-yard dash times and other combine tests where he topped the charts. Rich Rodriguez later backed that up by calling Powdrell a day-1 starter at safety in an interview, which only strengthened the momentum around his offseason profile.
Even though he played almost exclusively outside corner at UNLV, Powdrell is set to start at safety in 2026. Based on the way he has tested and the role he’s expected to fill, he looks like one of the best pure athletes on the roster - if not the best.
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