Morgantown, West Virginia – Neal Brown met with the media today and discussed the progress of his team leading up to the 2021-2022 season. Among the topics discussed was the quarterback position, and not surprisingly, Brown played it very coy.
However, Brown did say that incumbent starter Jarret Doege absolutely needs to improve his mobility this season, something he struggled with last year. Pocket mobility is clearly the main thing that Brown would like to see change with Doege.
“I don’t think anybody is going to mistake him for Lamar Jackson (of the Baltimore Ravens), but what he’s got to do is he’s got to continue to improve his movement in the pocket. Tom Brady is 43 years old and he’s still at the top of his game as far as pocket movement goes, and it’s movement that the common fan probably doesn’t even notice, but he is elite at moving in the pocket and I don’t think anybody would say he’s a great athlete,” Neal Brown said today.
However, it’s also clear that Brown feels confident that Doege can be really effective with improved movement: “He didn’t lose us any games, okay? And I think that’s a big step for a quarterback. Before you win games, you need to not lose them. This spring is big for him because there are certain things that he’s got to be able to do to win against the teams we’re going to have to beat to take that next step, the teams that finished ahead of us in the standings.”
Brown also discussed the progress of redshirt freshman Garrett Greene, who Brown says didn’t get the full reps he needed last year and promises more to this coming season: “He went through spring ball last year, but he really got two practices in before the pandemic stoppage and he had an opportunity to learn, but he really missed those live reps.”
Brown continued: “But he is going to get a lot of work this spring. I didn’t think he was at a position where it was fair to put him out there because you have to be really careful with quarterbacks playing if they aren’t ready.
But he understands what our expectations are and he understands conceptually what we’re doing in both the run and pass schemes. He just needs live reps and he’s going to get a ton.”
While Jarret Doege ultimately didn’t lose any games necessarily, he also didn’t win many either. Although Doege has been in the system for two full seasons and has an incredible amount of experience, hopefully Greene is given a real opportunity to compete with Doege for the starting position.
