OKLAHOMA CITY — Brandon Pettigrew doesn’t hesitate to admit there was a time, not so long ago, when he wasn’t any good at football.
But something kept him coming back, a deep passion for the game that still runs through his veins today.
“Even when I was terrible, I still loved football,” Pettigrew said this week as he prepared for the NFL draft.
Years before he was a prospect widely expected to be selected in the first round Saturday, possibly by the Jets at No. 17, Pettigrew was on the scrawny side as a tight end at Lee High School in Tyler, Texas.
“I blocked a lot in high school. I didn’t get the ball very much,” Pettigrew said. “It just kind of grew on me. I’ve always been coached to play hard without the ball.
“It works both ways. When you’ve got the ball, you want people out there doing work for you, blocking for you, so I try to do the same.”
Those days when he wasn’t a primary receiving target helped shape Pettigrew’s future. In a crop of tight ends that also features South Carolina’s Jared Cook, Wisconsin’s Travis Beckum, and Mackey Award winner Chase Coffman from Missouri, Pettigrew could be the best all-around player of the bunch.
“When teams look at me, I know that they see that I’m not just a one-dimensional tight end,” Pettigrew said. “They see a complete tight end because I can get in and help with the run game, I can get out on the pass routes — the short routes, and I can stretch the field.
“I’m hoping that they see that I’m a complete tight end, because that’s what I believe I am.”
Pettigrew said his development sped up after he became a starter on the junior varsity team in his sophomore year of high school. Colleges started to notice him even though he tore a ligament in his right knee during his junior year. But he never was a highly rated recruit and ended up picking Oklahoma State over Texas A&M.
“Throughout the years, I got bigger and I got stronger and I got faster,” Pettigrew said. “I guess I was a late bloomer, but eventually I did develop.”
Pettigrew’s 6-foot-5 frame now has about 265 pounds on it — about 40 more than when he arrived in Stillwater five years ago — and he has developed a reputation as a mashing blocker with the Cowboys, earning praise from coach Mike Gundy for racking up 12 knockdowns in one game.
His receiving statistics from four seasons at Oklahoma State aren’t as eye-popping. He caught 112 passes for 1,450 yards and nine touchdowns in his career. Last season, when he missed three games with a sprained ankle, he had 42 catches for 472 yards without a touchdown.
He followed that by running the 40-yard dash in 4.83 seconds at the NFL combine, and a hamstring injury kept him out of Oklahoma State’s pro day. The perception that Pettigrew might be a step slow could keep him from going even higher in the draft, but he’s still expected to be the first tight end taken.
“I’m not really worried about it. Teams have told me don’t really worry about it because they’ve seen the tape,” Pettigrew said. “That’s just two different things. There’s a 40 time and then there’s field speed, in my opinion, so I don’t really worry about it.
“I was disappointed about it because I know I could have ran faster because I had been running faster than that.”
Usually a mild-mannered man of few words, Pettigrew also hit a bump after declaring he’d return for his senior season of college. He was arrested in January 2008 on a felony assault charge for elbowing a police officer who was breaking up a party. Pettigrew eventually pleaded guilty to reduced charges of misdemeanor assault and battery and public intoxication. He received a deferred sentence that won’t go on his criminal record if he follows the terms of his probation until June.
Pettigrew has said he embarrassed himself with the incident, which he has put in the past. The only question is whether NFL brass will let it overshadow any of his on-field performances.
“I’m not going to brag, but I think I’m pretty good. I did everything I can to make them believe that I am the best tight end,” Pettigrew said. “I play hard. There’s some good tight ends out there, too.
“I’m just going to do what I do best, do what I’ve been doing throughout the years.”