When Will Grier announced his intentions to transfer to WVU from Florida, Mountaineer Nation was ecstatic. For nearly a year and a half, the fanbase hyped up his arrival and even claimed Grier to be the savior of Mountaineer Football. When he finally arrived on the field and began to produce solid numbers, the fans only fell more in love with the signal-caller.
Fast forward seven months after Will Grier took his last snap for the Mountaineers, and in comes Bowling Green quarterback Jarret Doege. Having been the starter for the Falcons for nearly two full seasons, he brought a plethora of experience and talent with him. However, the excitement for Doege was somewhat overlooked due to the arrival of Oklahoma’s Austin Kendall. Despite this, Doege would finally get his chance to showcase his talents ten games into the 2019 season.
He would start the final three games for West Virginia, and would lead them to a 2-1 finish. His most prominent performance came in a road victory against nationally ranked Kansas State. After finishing the season with 818 passing yards and seven touchdowns to three interceptions, many outlets pegged him as a potential breakout player in 2020. Now that he has had a successful season opener, outlets are grading him as one of the best players in the nation.
Even while he has shown immense promise, Mountaineer Nation still doesn’t appear to be sold on the Bowling Green transfer. If you would happen to gaze at the comment section on any WVU-related page, fans are still pessimistic to say the least. Many attribute his strong performance to inferior competition.
While that argument can be made about his performance against EKU, this isn’t a valid argument for the rest of his performances. Doege faced three solid defenses to close the 2019 season, and really only struggled in one game. In the matchup against TCU, Doege still managed to toss two touchdowns, one being the game winner.
Doege has poise, good pocket presence, and a solid arm. He has every attribute needed to be a solid Big 12 quarterback. It is time that we raise the question why is he not getting the respect he deserves from our fanbase? Did Will Grier only get it because of who he was? Was it Grier’s previous stop at a SEC school that brought him the attention? No matter what it was, it doesn’t matter.
Doege may have played against lesser competition than Grier, but he was just as successful in doing so. By the end of his career, we could be talking about Doege being better than Grier — yes, I said it. While it may be very early, the potential of Doege is there, and we should believe he will achieve what Mountaineer fans have been longing for since joining the Big 12.
