Rich Rodriguez Might Play All Five WVU Quarterbacks and He is Not Joking About It

Rich Rod likes what he has seen from the entire Mountaineer quarterback room.
West Virginia University quarterback Khalil Wilkins
West Virginia University quarterback Khalil Wilkins | Christopher Hall – West Virginia on SI

Everyone's eyes will go directly to the quarterback whenever the WVU football depth chart is released sometime in the next couple of days, but don't read too much into what it says. For one, there will probably be an "or" thrown in between most, if not all of the names, and if not, it's still not an order that will be set in stone.

As I've stated for weeks, Rich Rodriguez is going to play multiple quarterbacks in the season opener against Robert Morris, so it doesn't matter who gets the start. It's what said quarterback does with that opportunity, along with the others who see playing time that matters.

Monday night, Rodriguez confirmed the idea of playing more than one guy, but took it a step further.

“Yeah. And that’ll probably be the case every week," he said on his coach's show. "Typically, some coaches will say you can’t…I would never put a quarterback in and tell ‘em listen, you screw up, I’m pulling you out. I don’t want them to play with fear. I want them to go out there and be confident. So, I’m not going to yank a guy because he makes one bad play. But there are certain plays that certain quarterbacks do better than others. If you have the ability to do it and they can run most of your offense and they can help you win, why not? I’m not adverse to playing multiple quarterbacks, like somebody wouldn’t be adverse to playing multiple defensive ends or defensive tackles. But typically, when a guy is hot and a drive is going, we don’t want to sub at all. And if we do sub, we’re very purposeful when we sub. In other words, it’s going to be when there’s a delay in the action.”

WVU play-by-play man Tony Caridi then proceeded to ask if it would be totally absurd to think that all five quarterbacks — Nicco Marchiol, Jaylen Henderson, Max Brown, Khalil Wilkins, and Scotty Fox — could play at some point this season.

“No, that could be totally accurate," Rodriguez responded. "It’s a long season. It’s safe to say you’ll probably see all five of them at some point. If you got a guy and he’s just that good and dominant, like, we had Tyler Huff last year — he wasn’t the starter last year. And then he played in the second game against Louisville and kind of showed it, and then the rest of the year, he was the player of the year in the conference, and you didn’t want him to come out. You’re riding with that guy all the way. When a guy gets hot like that, you don’t want to take the guy out. But when you have a pretty solid competition like we have at quarterback, you have to legitimately give them all a shot. Now, if there was one that was way behind, like, your time is going to come down the road…but right now, they’ve all done enough to warrant getting reps.”

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Schuyler Callihan
SCHUYLER CALLIHAN

Schuyler Callihan is the publisher of West Virginia On SI and has been a trusted source covering the Mountaineers since 2016. He is the host of Between The Eers, The Walk Thru Game Day Show, and In the Gun Podcast. The Wheeling, WV native moved to Charlotte, North Carolina in 2020 to cover the Charlotte Hornets and Carolina Panthers.

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