The Best Way to Handle the WVU QB Situation

Neal Brown has some decisions to make.

Before the season even started, West Virginia fans wanted redshirt freshman Garrett Greene to lead the team at quarterback. They had seen enough from Jarrett Doege over the last year and some change and feel like the Mountaineers aren't going to be a contender in the Big 12 with Doege leading the charge.

I understand the reasoning for wanting Greene to takeover the starting job but let's pause for one second and not get ahead of ourselves. Two years ago, folks didn't give Austin Kendall much of a chance despite having an injured hand, a dismantled offensive line, no running game, and extremely young wide receivers. The fans began to pound their fist on the table to see Jarret Doege. He finally got his opportunity and went 2-1 in the final three games of the season as the starter and everyone thought he was the answer. I'm sure some folks on Twitter remember, I was not one of those people. I made several comparisons between Doege and Kendall and how the offense was nearly the same regardless of who was in the game.

Fast forward to the 2021 season and now we have the same situation developing with Greene being the guy everyone wants to see. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and the excitement for Greene's potential is plausible but just remember, changing the quarterback is not always the right answer and not every mobile, young quarterback is going to be the next Pat White. That said, it's hard to refrain from that kind of thinking when you see what Greene is able to do with his legs.

Over the weekend, fans got their first extensive look at Greene in game action and he completed 4 of 7 passes for 57 yards and also rushed for 98 yards and two scores. Following the game, Brown discussed his performance.

“I thought he did some good things. Was he perfect? Absolutely not. But I thought he did a good job managing the environment,” said Brown. “You got to remember; this is the first time he’s really played with people in the stands. Played a lot against Eastern Kentucky last year, but there wasn’t anybody here, but I thought he handled the elements well.”

“I don’t know if he ran any of the plays the way they were exactly supposed to be ran, but he made some plays,” said Brown while giving out a chuckle. “So, credit to him, and that’s kind of where it’s at right now. He’s fun to watch. He’s got some juice about him. I thought he did a good job of creating some plays. Some of those didn’t need to be created - he could have thrown into rhythm, but he showed some growth.”

Although it was a good outing, you can't take much from what happened in this game due to the strength of the opponent. Long Island is only in their third season as an FCS program and is considered to be near the bottom at the FCS level. They don't have the athletes nor the depth to be able to compete, let alone with a Big 12 school, as you could see on full display this past Saturday.

In all honesty, I don't know that I know much more about Garrett Greene than I did before the game. We all knew that he would be able to make plays with his legs but his efficiency in the passing game has always been the biggest question mark. Not that he can't do it but because he hasn't been able to showcase it at this level, yet. Wanting Greene to start against Virginia Tech is not a good idea. Use him in certain situations? Sure, absolutely. Why not? As Neal Brown has pointed out several times before, this team is better from a depth perspective but the margin of error still remains small. They're not to a point where they can overcome big mistakes and win ball games.  Greene is still developing as a quarterback and you don't want to rush that.

Neal Brown has a reason for everything he does, and that includes the handling of Greene's development as a college quarterback.

“He’s going through this maturation and growth process. He’s a guy that didn’t have what I would say ‘normal quarterback upbringing.’ So, the way the quarterbacks are kind of brought up now is that they play seven on seven starting in middle school, and you do a bunch of seven on seven tournaments, and you have seven on seven teams, and you have spring football, and you're basically getting a bunch of live reps. And for him, that just wasn’t his experience. He was a baseball player. He comes from a baseball family. He played summer baseball. He didn’t go through spring practice. He didn’t go to many (spring) practices at all. He played in an offense that was really run base. It wasn’t a spread type of offense. So, they weren’t asking him to make progressions or look at coverages a whole lot. So, he just didn’t have that same type of quarterback upbringing as some of the others.

"Whether it was Jarret [Doege] whose dad was a high school football coach, and that’s what he did growing up, or Will Crowder is in a system there in Gardendale, and that’s what they did. That wasn’t Garrett’s upbringing, and I don’t think that’s bad because I think you get into bad habits. But really, over the last 20 months or so, this is the first time he’s really been locked in on football only and worked fundamentals and had to go through progressions and his athletic ability just wasn’t enough because he’s relied on that. So, it’s a growth process with him. His spring was up and down. We felt like he had a better summer, but in fall camp, it was still up and down. It wasn’t consistent as we’d like to see - didn’t think he was ready to play in the opener. We knew he was going to get some playing time here. We’ll go back and evaluate the film, and if his play here and his play as we go through the week warrants that he gets an opportunity in situations, then yes, we will use him. I think he can help us.”

Ushering in a young quarterback as the starter is also about timing. It has to be the right time and I don't mean just Greene being ready. It's about who's on the schedule as well. The last thing you want to do as a head coach is yank your starter, throw a pup to the wolves and have bad things happen. Now, you've ruined the confidence of not only your former starting quarterback but the backup turned starting quarterback as well. This is why Brown is so bullish on leaving Doege as the starter. He has seen the strides that he made throughout the offseason, leading him to tab Doege as the team's "most improved player" and he wants to see that through.

There's no reason to roll Greene out as the starter against the No. 15 team in the country and then follow that up by going on the road against No. 3 Oklahoma for a night game. Brown pointed out that Greene is still trying to piece together consistency. Having an athletic quarterback that knows what he's doing on every play is one thing but Greene is still trying to work some things out. This isn't the time to throw him out there and say, 'Figure it out and beat two top 15 teams.' That's asking a lot out of a redshirt freshman who as Neal stated, is still learning how to read defenses and go through his progressions. When you play two opponents like WVU is about to play in the next two weeks, you can't have a quarterback out there who is still learning when you have a senior on the roster who has seen it all. 

You have to be fragile with quarterbacks in their development. You'd rather go back and say 'ah, I wish we would have started him earlier' than start him before he's fully ready and watch his confidence take a big hit. Sometimes those early struggles are hard for quarterbacks to get over and some never rebound. Now, that's a whole other problem that didn't need to be created. 

In terms of each quarterback's ceiling, I think we'd be kidding ourselves if we said Doege has more potential. Greene's skillset is clearly what makes him so exciting to watch and is what makes his ceiling much higher than Doege's. We know what Doege can do and what he can't do. He's won games in the past and he'll win a few more games before his time at West Virginia is done. I'm not saying Doege should be the starter because he is a better talent than Greene. I'm saying right now, believe it or not, he gives West Virginia the best chance to win. Greene is well on his way but still needs time before the keys to the offense are officially handed over to him.

If I'm Neal Brown, I'm rolling with Doege and hope that the improvements that he made during the offseason start to show on gameday. If WVU drops these next two games to Virginia Tech and Oklahoma, that'll give them a 1-3 record. At that point, if the play from Doege is still far from impressive, I'd give him at most, two more starts before I fully consider a changing of the guard. If WVU is 3-5 through the first eight games, I'd understand the decision to start Greene. The season is going nowhere and you want to give Greene that all-so-important experience heading into 2022.

Until then, Neal Brown has to insert Greene into the game here and there for certain packages to keep defenses honest. Maybe even in the red zone or on 3rd and shorts, allow him to run some RPO's. Defenses will key in on him as a running threat but if you give him the option to either hand the ball off or toss out a quick screen or slant, the defense won't have a clue of what to do. By doing this, you are giving Greene layup plays instead of dropping back and having him read a defense 30-35 times a game. This will build confidence and will prepare him to be the starting quarterback of the future. That way if he does takeover as QB1 later in the season, he'll be ready to do so. 

This isn't a time for excuses by any means but the game vs Maryland could be an outlier. When you go back and watch the tape, Doege wasn't the only issue. Balls were dropped by receivers, the defense took a while to get going, and most importantly, the offensive line was an eyesore. Teams make the biggest improvement from week one to week two. Unfortunately, it was hard to really see any areas of improvement when you're playing Long Island. This Saturday will be a good barometer of the progress WVU has made since coming up short in College Park.

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