Why is the Entire College Football World Sleeping on Garrett Greene?

Some things just don't make sense and WVU's dual-threat QB not getting any preseason love is one of them.

Kareem Elgazzar/The Enquirer / USA TODAY

There were so many question marks surrounding the West Virginia Mountaineers a year ago, including the quarterback position. We had seen glimpses of Garrett Greene throughout his career, but primarily as a runner. Toward the end of 2022, he took the reins of the offense from JT Daniels, winning two of the final three games knocking off Oklahoma and Oklahoma State on the road.

The first month of 2023 was a challenging one for Greene as he opened the season on the road in one of the most hostile environments in college football, facing a Penn State defense loaded with NFL talent from front to back. Two weeks later, Greene left the Backyard Brawl early in the first quarter with an ankle injury and did not return. When he returned a couple weeks later against TCU, he still wasn't at 100% but Neal Brown found out late in the practice week that backup quarterback Nicco Marchiol had an ankle injury, forcing Greene back into action.

Things began to click for Greene once he returned to full strength as he put up a monster day against Houston, completing 20-of-38 pass attempts for 391 yards and two touchdowns. And who could forget the dramatic go-ahead touchdown with just seconds left in the game? Unfortunately, the Mountaineers wasted a special moment for Greene by allowing a game-winning touchdown on a Hail Mary as time expired.

Greene's only true poor performance came on the road against No. 17 Oklahoma, where he managed to complete just 37% of his passes and failed to do make up for it on the ground with only 24 rushing yards. Overall, it was about as good of a season as you could have asked for his first full year as the guy running the show.

What I don't understand is how Greene is being overlooked by nearly every national media outlet and every college football analyst. It's pretty rare for a quarterback who threw for 2,406 yards, had a 16/4 touchdown/interception split, accumulated 772 yards and 13 touchdowns with his legs, and led his team to a nine-win season to not be talked about. If you stack his numbers up against the other highly regard signal callers in the Big 12, it further proves that he's being overlooked.

2023 Stats	Passing Yards	TD/INT	Rushing Yards	Rushing TDs
Greene (WVU)	2,406	16/4	772	13
Fifita (Arizona)	2,869	25/6	-33	0
Sanders (Colorado)	3,230	27/3	-77	4
Jefferson (UCF)	2,107	19/8	447	2
Becht (Iowa St)	3,120	23/8	63	3

Cam Rising (Utah) and Jalon Daniels (Kansas) were both injured last year, so that's why I didn't include them above. However, I included their numbers from 2022 below.

2022 Stats	Passing Yards	TD/INT	Rushing Yards	Rushing TDs
Rising (Utah)	3,034	26/8	465	6
Daniels (Kansas)	2,014	18/4	425	7

Keep in mind, Greene played a half versus Duquesne, missed essentially the entire Pitt game, and all of the matchup with Texas Tech. So if we just take his per game averages of 218.7 yards through the air and 70.2 yards on the ground, he'd finish around 2,843 yards passing and 912 yards rushing.

Again, I ask: Why is he not being talked about outside of West Virginia?

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