Neal Brown Praises Jarret Doege, Austin Kendall Ahead of QB Battle
There is no controversy when it comes to who will be West Virginia’s starting quarterback, not yet anyway. If there is any unity among Mountaineer fans at this time, it is that Jarrett Doege will be starting under center come September 5th.
This may come into fruition, but without the evaluation period during spring practice, there is no clear-cut frontrunner, despite Doege starting the last three games of the 2019 season and going 2-1 during that span with both wins coming on the road.
However, it was not enough for West Virginia head coach Neal Brown and his staff to give him the starting nod heading into the offseason and for good reason. The offense still lacked offensive firepower averaging 21.3 points per game in those three games.
Most of the offensive inefficiencies stemmed from youth and inexperience on the offensive line and the receiving core along with installing a new offensive scheme. Add injuries into the mix and the outcome was one of the worst offenses in the country.
Neal Brown has said several times throughout the offseason that “We will be the most improved team in the country” and continuing the belief throughout the entire virtual process.
Naturally, the success will start upfront with the hog mollies but the lack of team repetitions heading into just the second year under the Brown regime, the mental aspect of the game may play more of a vital role in the early portion of the season with the ability to put teammates in the position to make plays nut just as important one of the intangibles is the ability to lead.
"I’ve been extremely pleased with our quarterbacks during this pandemic and period of virtual learning and I think both of them have done an exceptional job from a leadership standpoint,” said Brown.
“I think you see our accountability teams. I think it’s important to note that Garrett Green is part of Darius Stills’ team, he’s in third-position and Darius is a leader in the group, but Garrett’s been really active. Both of those guys, Doege and Kendall’s team, both have risen to the top of those standings. And, I’m proud of how they’ve gone about attacking that leadership role, but learning and growing as football players through this virtual learning - just defensive recognition, coverages, protections, those type of things. They’ll be ready to go. Whenever we start, those two are going to be ready to go. They’re going to compete and more power to whoever wins, but I think we got two guys that I’ve been extremely pleased with and they’re more than capable of leading our football team.”
Currently, the majority of the team is participating in voluntary workouts on the concourse of Mountaineer Field but we’re nearing summer access with workouts and walkthroughs beginning July 24th with fall camp starting August 7th, then maybe in week two we’ll get a gauge on whether it will Doege or Kendall starting against Florida State.
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