Morgantown, West Virginia – JT Daniels was one of the highest recruits out of high school, being the 16th best recruit in the country and the third best quarterback of his class. Now, he is the starting QB of the West Virginia Mountaineers.
JT Started his career at USC, skipping his senior year of high school to play college ball. He didn’t have the best start, but a solid one, having 14 touchdowns and 10 interceptions, with a rate of 128.6. In 2019, he only played in one game having 1 touchdown and one interception.
He decided to transfer to Georgia, after having a season-ending injury there. In his redshirt Sophomore year, he had 10 touchdowns and 2 interceptions and in his redshirt Junior year, had 7 touchdowns and 3 interceptions before being injured again and inevitably transferring to West Virginia.
Daniels has 2 years of eligibility thanks to the 2020 COVID year giving every athlete an extra year.
So, how has Daniels done at West Virginia?
He is about as good as he can be with this coaching staff. He currently has 8 touchdowns and 2 interceptions completing 116 of 182 passing attempts and has a Quarterback Rating of 71.5, which is 37th in the country.
While this is pretty good (and certainly the best QB play by far we have seen under head coach Neal Brown), it might affect his draft stock either this year or next year (depending on when he puts his name into the draft). West Virginia is currently off to a 2-3 (0-2) start this season with losses to Pittsburgh, Kansas, and Texas. While this is bad, the offense has not played badly under Daniels, but the offensive line has limited his ability to pass the ball. While Daniels has only been sacked 8 times, it has not shown how much it has affected Daniels.
Against WVU’s first three opponents, the offensive line was less of an issue, due to the fact that these teams did not have much of an offense. Against Virginia Tech, this really started to show, as West Virginia had to kick FOUR field goals, and the pick-six by Jacolby Spells made it appear that West Virginia had more offensive success than they actually did. Going into the fourth quarter, the score was only 16-10 in West Virginia’s favor.
Against Texas, the offense completely collapsed, with JT Daniels being the prime target on EVERY offensive drive. Even West Virginia’s 20 points weren’t real points. They were just cheap fourth-quarter points when Texas decided to put in their second and third-string defenders.
So, what will being a member of the West Virginia Football Team do for JT Daniels?
In all honesty, not a whole lot, unless the offensive line issues get fixed and the wide receivers limit drops. It will be a long couple of years for JT if he decided to stick around, and our offensive woes really limit his true potential as a star quarterback.
