Orphaned College Football Legend Whom Deion Sanders Gave Shelter Sees Life Come Full Circle With Son

For West Virginia fans who grew up on his stop-start bursts, Noel Devine is still that electric name. And in 2025, he’s back in Morgantown as an offensive analyst and assistant running backs coach, guiding the next wave of Mountaineers. Before the headset, he arrived as the program’s highest-rated signee and became a record-setter who piled up 4,315 rushing yards and 29 rushing touchdowns while finishing with 5,761 all-purpose yards. He was inducted into the WVU Sports Hall of Fame in 2021, a capstone that matched the way his career felt to a fan base that followed every cut and sprint. For all of that glow, Devine’s story always carried a gravity that made the accomplishments feel even bigger.

Devine grew up amid profound loss. His father died when he was three months old, his mother passed away at 11, and by his junior year, he was already a father of two while trying to keep school and life on track. That’s where Deion Sanders entered, the North Fort Myers legend who brought Devine to Texas, explored becoming his legal guardian, and tried to impose structure during a chaotic stretch. “He didn’t have any structure,” Sanders said, “and he wasn’t used to it,” a blunt assessment that matched the push-pull of those weeks when Devine briefly lived with him before returning to Florida, even as their relationship kept functioning as a lifeline and a guidepost. 

Years later, it’s striking how steady Devine’s life reads: a degree completed in 2019, a return to WVU’s staff in 2025, and a role that lets him teach the same details he once learned on the fly. And then came the family news that makes a football life feel complete. It was when his son, Noel Devine Jr., an eighth grader, received his first scholarship offer from Miami, the moment Devine celebrated aloud on X: “So proud and happy for my son Noel jr he’s only in 8th grade and got his first offer from the U!” That’s just a line, but it lands like a drumbeat given everything that came before it, because the pride is earned and the milestone is real, and it signals the start of a recruiting journey that began even before high school snaps.

The story got even richer a day later when West Virginia offered too, becoming his second scholarship and tying the family name right back to the place where his father made memories that still fill highlight reels in the mind. Noel Devine Jr., a Class of 2030 prospect and a quarterback who just won an AAU regional 100-meter title in 11.30 seconds, now holds invitations from Miami and WVU before his freshman year begins, which reads like the most literal kind of full circle. For a dad who once needed a hand and later learned to become one, seeing his son draw a WVU offer while he coaches in Morgantown feels like the program and the family sharing a single timeline.

So yes, it is football, and it is also the aftermath of car rides, hard talks, and second chances. And now it is a father in a WVU polo smiling at a phone screen while a teenager starts his own chapter with South Florida speed and Mountain State roots. Even Sanders’ early presence reads differently now, not as a headline but as a formative nudge that helped a gifted kid keep going until the kid became a mentor and a dad whose words are simple because the meaning is heavy. If that is not life coming around, it is close enough to believe in, and for the Devines, belief once again has a jersey and a future to chase.

Deion and Devine

The connection between Deion Sanders and Devine started in Fort Myers, where school officials approached Sanders to help stabilize Devine after years marked by the deaths of both parents and frequent housing changes. Sanders brought Devine to Texas, and with the family’s permission, he explored adopting him, marking a mentorship that went beyond football and into daily structure and support. That early phase included time together in Dallas and at the Baltimore Ravens’ training camp while Sanders was wrapping up his NFL career, deepening their bond through proximity and routine.

Living together proved challenging, and Devine soon returned to Florida, leading Sanders to cancel adoption plans as questions and a false 911 “kidnapping” call swirled around the situation and drew outside scrutiny. Accounts differed about motives and conversations, but the core reality was a teenager trying to adapt to new rules and a mentor learning where guidance ended and control began amid intense public attention. Even in that friction, the relationship never fully broke, setting the stage for a later reset built on distance and trust rather than guardianship.

Over time, they reconnected, and Devine, by then a Big East standout at West Virginia, sought Sanders’ counsel on whether to leave early for the NFL, receiving the advice to stay in school and finish his degree trajectory. WVU coach Bill Stewart characterized Sanders’ involvement as “nothing but positive,” a sentiment that captures the mentorship’s lasting effect beyond headlines and one-week snapshots in Texas. The arc from mentorship to advisory role shows how a complicated start evolved into a steadying influence during Devine’s most pivotal choices as a student-athlete.