The Future of WVU Football: Greene, Crowder, or Marchiol?
Jarret Doege will not be West Virginia's starting quarterback in 2022. Friday evening, the senior quarterback announced on Twitter that he will be transferring to finish out his collegiate career.
With this news, this means that for the first time in years, West Virginia will have a true competition for the starting quarterback job. During the Dana Holgorsen years, the job was won by transfers and JUCO transfers. Neal Brown took a similar approach to get things started with Austin Kendall and Doege but now, he has three quarterbacks that signed with WVU out of high school and all three are capable of winning the job - Garrett Greene, Will "Goose" Crowder, and Nicco Marchiol.
Which one will it be? What does each one offer? We take an in-depth look below to see which young quarterback just might be the future face of WVU football.
Garrett Greene
This is in no comparing his talent to the legendary Pat White, but West Virginia hasn't had a dual-threat quarterback like Greene since White. He can improvise when a play breaks down and use his legs to take off or to scramble out of the pocket to extend the play until his receivers get open.
To win the job, he needs his arm play recognition to come along. He can be very accurate with the football but can also be very erratic. Head coach Neal Brown mentioned a few times throughout the course of the season that Greene is still in the process of learning how to read defenses. He came from a high school that rarely threw the ball and didn't have many reads to go through when they did throw the ball.
Consistency is going to be a big thing for him moving forward and being able to make all the routine throws while hitting on some of the tougher throws downfield. Greene has a toughness and a swagger to his game, which can help compensate for his lack of size.
Will Crowder
We didn't get to see much of Crowder this season so it's hard to truly gauge where he is at in his development, but he looked the part on the few snaps that he did receive. In the spring game, he did a good job of bouncing back after turning the ball over. He had a little bit of bad luck on the interception - a ball that was thrown a little too high, got tipped up into the air and into the defender's hands. He bounced right back and delivered a 65-yard touchdown pass to Sam Brown on the first play of his next series.
Crowder seems to move around pretty well and can evade pressure with his feet, but don't expect him to take off and run with the ball a whole lot. He's more athletic than starter Jarret Doege but nowhere near Greene's athleticism. As far as throwing the ball goes, Crowder may actually have one of the best deep balls of all the WVU quarterbacks currently on the roster (based mainly on HS tape). He knows where the holes are in the secondary and puts good touch on his throws downfield. Crowder has a strong arm but it's not anywhere near being fully developed.
Nicco Marchiol
Much like Greene, Marchiol does a good job of improvising when a play breaks down and makes big plays with his legs. What makes him even more dangerous is his ability to throw a rope to his receivers down the field while on the run. He's very smooth in his throwing motion and has a good feel for dropping the ball over the receiver's shoulder, especially on fades in the back corner of the end zone. Not only does Marchiol have a strong and accurate arm, but he knows when to let it rip and when to take what the defense is giving him. He's an excellent decision-maker that has great fluidity in the pocket and doesn't get overwhelmed by pressure. With Marchiol's skill set, he will be able to compete for the starting job early in his career.
Final thoughts
To me, Garrett Greene is an offensive weapon. Is he a full-time starting quarterback? I don't know if that's in his future in Morgantown. To take over as the starter, he has to really develop in the passing game in just one offseason. Both Crowder and Marchiol are more advanced in the passing game which leads me to believe that the competition will really come down to those two guys. Greene will still be used in certain situations because he is too good of an athlete to not have some type of role in the offense.
For Doege to not return and play his final year elsewhere leads me to believe that Neal Brown has a boatload of confidence in Marchiol being the guy. Starting a true freshman from day one isn't ideal, but Brown has seen Greene and Crowder practice and develop throughout the last 1-2 years and if he believes Marchiol is the guy, then it makes sense to go ahead and start him from the jump. After all, it's not like Neal Brown is completely playing true freshmen, even at the most difficult positions such as the offensive line. Zach Frazier and Wyatt Milum both started as true freshmen on the offensive line and Akheem Mesidor on the defensive side.
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