Neal Brown says Quarterback Play not the Issue

The offensive struggles continue for the Mountaineers, but Brown says there's bigger issues

Many things have plagued the West Virginia offense throughout the course of the season and if it's not one thing, it's another. 

Head football coach Neal Brown spoke to the media today for his weekly press conference and one of the main topics of discussion? The quarterback situation. After weeks and weeks of fans pleading for backups Jarret Doege and Trey Lowe III to get an opportunity, it finally happened this past Saturday. Near the final minutes of the third quarter Brown replaced Kendall with Doege and put up a solid performance in his first outing as a Mountaineer. He completed 11 of 17 passes for 119 yards and a touchdown.

Kendall, had himself a pretty good game throwing for 355 yards against the Texas Tech defense, but was picked off twice and shorted some deep balls that could have resulted in more than just a big play first down. The offense moved the ball pretty easily against the Red Raiders in between the 20's, but struggled mightily in the red zone. It wasn't that Kendall was yanked due to "under-performing", the game plan all along was to get Doege into the game and get him some reps. 

As I mentioned in yesterday's article, there's enough blame to go around then just squarely on the shoulders of starting quarterback Austin Kendall.

Following the loss on Saturday, Brown echoed that same sentiment, "The same things that plagued Jarret [Doege] are the same things that plagued Austin [Kendall]. We dropped the ball, we didn't do a great job in pass protection. I'll say this, I wish quarterback was our problem." Then today at the press conference he reassured everyone by saying he wasn't saying that to be a smart aleck, "We've got issues on offense. Our quarterback play hasn't been tremendous, but it hasn't been the reason why we've struggled either. As the areas we've got to get fixed, that's not number one on the list.

Of course everything revolves around the quarterback, but there are bigger issues that need to be addressed if this offense wants to start finding success.