Henderson? Marchiol? Brown? A Wild Card? WVU Has a 'Legit' QB Battle on its Hands

Rich Rodriguez isn't anywhere near ready to name a starting quarterback for West Virginia's 2025 season and probably won't be until a couple of weeks into fall camp. He has stated on several occassions that he feels really good about the group of guys in that room and if there's one position he's not worried about, it's the quarterback spot.

Currently six quarterbacks are taking reps in spring practice, but that will get trimmed down the deeper we get into spring. Everyone has their opinions as to who WVU's starter might be for various reasons, but Rodriguez admitted on Monday that even he has no idea as to who it's going to be, making for a really hard decision in the future. It's a good problem to have.

West Virginia University quarterback Nicco Marchiol | Christopher Hall - West Virginia on SI

“I do think they’ve gotten better each day. It’s kind of gotten to where one day you see a couple guys take a step and then another day, it’s another couple. Rhett’s repping all six of them and I think we got to basically come down to four guys before the end of spring. I like the room. I think they’re all really conscientious. I think they’ve gotten better and it’s some really good competition. Legit. It’s not makeup competition. The veterans that have been around a little bit, Nicco (Marchiol) and Jaylen (Henderson) have done a good job, but Max (Brown) has got some skills and I’ve been really impressed with Scotty Fox. I think he’s got a great future.”

While Fox and Khalil Wilkins are talented, they still need to be developed both physically and mentally. What they see at this level is night and day different from the coverages they saw in high school. It takes time to train your eyes and learn what defenses at this level are doing. With all due respect, walk-ons Abe Fenwick and Scott Kean don't stand much of a chance to win the job, so by process of elimination that brings the competition down to three - Marchiol, Henderson, and Brown.

Most believe it's ultimately going to come down to Marchiol vs. Henderson, but multiple people within the program have told me to not count out Max Brown. They really like his skillset and believe he has just as good of a chance to win the job as the others.

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