Brown: "We're Not Coming Out of Spring With Starters at Any Position"

Spring football is officially underway in Morgantown and although starting quarterback Jarret Doege is returning, there is some speculation that he may not be locked in as the team's starter. In terms of experience and understanding of the offense, Doege is well ahead of the other two quarterbacks on the roster, both of which are freshmen (Garrett Greene and Will Crowder).

For the majority of the 2020 season, Doege did a really good job of protecting the football. However, he struggled in the final two games of the season and was eventually pulled in the bowl game as Austin Kendall led the team to a win over Army. In those two games, Doege went 36/66 for 368 yards, one touchdown, one interception, and a pair of fumbles. The sour end of the season is what has some thinking the senior quarterback may have to beat out redshirt freshman Garrett Greene for the starting gig.

When asked on Wednesday if Doege is locked into the starting spot, head coach Neal Brown made it pretty clear that no spots have been taken nor will be taken during the spring.

"Not to be redundant but this is a teaching environment here," Brown said. "We want to teach, give as many people as many reps as possible, and we're really not coming out of spring with starters at any position. You may have people that performed better, so they get the first opportunity in fall camp but our record at the end of spring is going to be 0-0. So to me, we're not going to play any games so we're not in a spot where starters or backups don't matter. The 1s and 2s are mixed. There's a distinct difference between guys getting reps and guys that don't get reps but there's not necessarily 1, 2, 3 at any position - you won't see a depth chart."

Earlier this month, Brown acknowledged Doege's struggles down the stretch and noted a couple of things they hope to see him improve on.

"I think that his mobility has got to improve and listen, I don't think anybody is going to mistake him for Lamar Jackson or anything but he's got to continue to improve his movement in the pocket. Tom Brady is 43-years old now I believe and he's still at the top of his game as far as pocket movement and it's a movement that probably the common fan doesn't even notice, but he is elite at moving in the pocket and I don't think anyone would say that he's a great athlete.

"We've got to improve on our ability to hit the deep ball. I thought he did a good job of taking care of the football. He didn't play very well in the bowl game, I think that's been noted but he didn't lose us any games and I think that's a step for a quarterback. Before you can win games, you need to not lose them. This spring is going to be big for him because there are certain things that he's got to do to be able to win against the teams that we're going to have to beat to take the next step."

During his first two years at West Virginia, Brown has not been shy about playing guys early in their career. If they deserve the playing time, he will give it to them. With that said, the tricky part is knowing when a quarterback is ready both mentally and physically to take over an offense. Greene may have the talent to make an impact in 2021 but for him to actually win the job as a redshirt freshman, he's going to have to prove he can handle the ups and downs that come without getting too high or too low.

"I think for Garrett, this is a huge spring," Brown said. "He graduated [high school] early and had the opportunity to go through spring ball last year and really only got two practices in. Things were going so fast, he didn't know which way was up honestly. During COVID, he had the opportunity to learn but he really missed those live reps. He got every Monday night football rep and grew - there were some ups and downs in the fall. I didn't think he was at a position where it was fair to him to put him out there because I think you've got to be careful playing quarterbacks before they're ready. You can see some guys that have been thrown into the fray, it didn't work out very well for them. That is one position where you don't play guys until they're ready. This spring is going to be big for him. He understands what our expectations are. He understands conceptually what we're doing both in the run and the pass game, he just needs live reps and he's going to get a ton of them."

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