College roommates and five-year friends Najee Goode and Keith Tandy were drafted Saturday by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, which is a pretty cool rarity for the duo. It’s just not often that you see college teammates together again in the the same NFL draft class.

It happens, usually to schools that have a greater likelihood of having multiple players drafted. Alabama, USC, Miami years ago, those kinds of schools. Not exactly WVU. Heck, the Buccaneers had only taken one WVU player ever — Lance Nimmo in 2003.

What made this really weird, though, was that Tampa Bay’s new coach is the old Rutgers coach, Greg Schiano. That guy literally couldn’t beat the Mountaineers. He tried to. Eleven times, in fact. Never happened.

Schiano, who you’ll remember was a defensive assistant in the NFL and then at The U, held both Goode and Tandy in high regard. Both figure to have value because of their adaptability.

Goode, a team captain, played all over the field for the Mountaineers in a complex defense, and Dominik thinks he could fit in a variety of places for the Buccaneers, as well.  Most likely, he’ll play in the middle or perhaps on the strong side.

“This is a guy we watched a lot throughout this whole process and a guy that we felt could play all three positions,” said Dominik.  “He’s physical, fast, I think he has one of the best use of hands of all the linebackers in this draft.  He’s going to have an opportunity to play all three [linebacker positions] and really compete, whether we put him at Mike, Will or Sam.  He’s at two-time captain at West Virginia, just the things we’re looking for on this football team.”

Coincidentally, the Buccaneers selected Goode’s college roommate with their next pick, taking Mountaineers cornerback Keith Tandy in Round Six.  Schiano was obviously very familiar with both defenders from his time in the Big East and respectively referred to them as “royal pains in the butt” during his Saturday evening wrap-up press conference.  Tandy is versatile like his teammate and could eventually see some playing time at safety, but the Bucs are going to let him do what he feels comfortable doing early on.

“As I talked to Coach about this selection, we’re going to give him a shot at corner and see how he does, because that’s what he did at West Virginia,” said Dominik.  “He has really good ball skills, a tough, physical tackler as well, so he’s an exciting element to our team.”

This wasn’t the end for WVU’s draft-eligible players, though.

Tyler Urban, who had all of 37 catches in his career, but seemed to benefit from learning the slot position this past year, signed with the Buccaneers as an undrafted free agent. Big body that knows how to play in space. Tampa Bay has seven tight ends on its roster and four caught passes last season, though just two caught more than four balls. None of them are Schiano’s guys, though, and he spent a seventh-round pick on Northwestern’s Drake Dunsmore. Urban has a shot, if nothing else.

The eye-opener, though, is long snapper Cody Nutter. He, too, signed with the Buccaneers as an undrafted free agent and he’d had virtually no prospects before that. Tampa Bay has a real good long snapper in Andrew Economos. He signed a five-year contract in June 2008, but that means Economos is in the final year of his contract.

And the last time Schiano saw Nutter, WVU’s long snapper was having a day in the snow in Piscataway, N.J.