Nicco Marchiol Just Might Factor in at QB for WVU Down the Stretch

West Virginia isn't making a QB change, but Nicco Marchiol could still see some action.

Ben Queen-Imagn Images

West Virginia quarterback Garrett Greene threw two interceptions in the loss to Iowa State and only managed to complete 56% of his pass attempts.

With the game seemingly in hand late in the fourth quarter, Neal Brown could have allowed Nicco Marchiol to run a drive but declined to. As a matter of fact, I'm not even sure it crossed his mind. When asked about it in the postgame presser he gave a snippy response asking a question back to the reporter stating, "Why would we do that? What? Do you think we needed one? (A spark)."

The reality of the situation is Greene has not played to the level he's capable of and in some ways, you can say he's taken a step back from a year ago. His completion percentage was talked about all offseason and the coaching staff felt extremely confident that he would be at 60% or higher during this season.

Nope.

Greene is currently completing 56.9% of his passes which is only a 3.2% increase from last season. That's not good enough, especially when he's turning the ball over as much as he has through the first six games.

On Monday, the question was asked again about whether Nicco Marchiol could see some playing time down the stretch, but this time, Brown gave a different answer.

Neal on Garrett Greene/Nicco Marchiol

“I think if you go across the country everybody’s enamored with the backup quarterback. We’re very fortunate here because we have one that can play. Are there scenarios where he can play? Yes, there’s definitely scenarios where he could play. Has Garrett done enough to lose his job? I would say no. Did he play as well as he needed to on Saturday for us to win? I would say no to that as well.

"But Garrett’s our starter. Nicco is a really good player and I really believe that he’s going to be the starter at some point, but Garrett hasn’t done anything (to lose his job). He’s played well enough. He’s got to make better decisions. One of the interceptions was clearly pass interference, so I don’t really blame him. The second one was a really poor decision. Nicco’s got a bright future. We can win games with him. Are there scenarios and packages where he could play? Yes.”

Packages? Yeah, probably not. At least not throwing the ball. It would make zero sense for Marchiol to have 2-3 packages a game and run the offense for a handful of plays. Two quarterback systems don't work and Neal has even admitted that in the past.

Marchiol will get opportunities if Greene goes down with an injury, a game has been well-decided, or if the team is struggling to win games and they need to see what they have in Nicco in the final couple of games.

If you remember, at the tail end of the 2022 season, Brown pulled the plug on JT Daniels as the starter to give Greene a runway heading into 2023. If the Mountaineers are out of the Big 12 title race, don't be surprised to see that happen again in late November.

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