Morgantown, West Virginia – West Virginia’s season opening loss at Maryland could have been avoided and future losses for the Mountaineers could also be prevented.
Neal Brown has made it abundantly clear that Jarret Doege is his starter and will remain so for the foreseeable future. From all indications from the coach, Brown is overall quite pleased with the performance of Doege, calling him “very efficient”, and not so impressed with backup Garrett Greene right now.
“Garrett did some things,” Brown said in the postgame conference following West Virginia’s 66-0 victory over Long Island. “We had the first two drives scripted for him and I don’t think he ran any of the plays the way that were supposed to be ran out there, but again, he made some plays.”
Brown continued: “There’s some things that he probably didn’t do a good job of, but everything he did was full throttle. That is one of the reasons we’re excited about him.”
Brown, clearly frustrated with a question about Greene’s performance, closed by saying, “We’ll go back and evaluate the film and if his play here and his play throughout the week warrants that he gets an opportunity in some situations, then we will use him. I think he can help us.”
Brown’s noncommittal stance on Greene is both disappointing and concerning. It’s clear that Greene’s mobility and elusiveness is precisely what the Mountaineers need right now. West Virginia’s offensive line has been bad through two games, but that’s largely because of Brown’s offensive scheme and a quarterback that can’t move in the pocket.
With Greene, West Virginia’s offense is completely different. Leddie Brown will have more space because the defense will have to concentrate on Greene running. When the defensive line beats the West Virginia offensive line – and they will get beaten often – Greene would escape and make plays outside of the pocket rather than taking a sack like Doege would.
West Virginia would be 2-0 with Garrett Greene as the starting quarterback. He is exactly what the Mountaineers needed against Maryland and is the answer to all of the problems the team will face when they play Virginia Tech and Oklahoma over the next two weeks.
