MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — As the crow flies, Lubbock, Texas, is about 1,300 miles from Morgantown, easily the furthest the West Virginia football team needs to travel in Big 12 play.
The long distance will actually play in the favor of Mountaineers quarterback Jarret Doege this week when WVU plays at Texas Tech on Saturday at Jones AT&T Stadium.
Even with limited capacity due to COVID-19, the Doege crew will likely be pretty loud.
“A lot of guys aren’t using their tickets to this game, so I’ve been asking a couple of guys to give me their tickets,” Doege said. “I think I’ll have 15-plus family and friends come and cheer in my section.”
Doege has bounced around from school to school in northwest Texas, attending four different schools, including one in Lubbock while he was in second and third grade. His older brother, Seth, was a quarterback at Texas Tech, so continuous trips to Lubbock were a necessity. After leaving Lubbock again from fourth-10th grade, the Doege family returned for Jarret’s junior year of high school, where he attended Lubbock Cooper High.
Doege has been around the Texas Tech program more than anyone within the WVU program, with the exception of head coach Neal Brown. While Seth was the starter for the Red Raiders from 2011-2012, Brown was the offensive coordinator, which is where Brown built a relationship with not only the Doege family, but a young Jarret.
“I was going to camps at Tech ever since I could throw a football,” Doege said. “I was going to the three-day camps, the one-day camps. And then when coach Brown was there, I remember specifically dropping on a line, and we’re still doing that today. I’ve always liked him ever since I met him. He would take us down there, just him and me and throw on the game field.”
One of Jarret’s fondest memories — at the expense of the Mountaineers — was when the Red Raiders and Seth knocked off a top-5 WVU team in Lubbock. After asking his father for permission, Jarret stormed the field to celebrate with the rest of the fans. Seth was lights out that day, throwing for 499 yards and six touchdowns — with Brown calling the plays.
“I feel like it was yesterday,” Doege said. “Watching my brother lay it on to Stedman (Bailey) and Geno (Smith) and Tavon (Austin), I ran around out there but I couldn’t find my brother.”
The 2012 game is remembered by many WVU faithful to be windy, which is not uncommon for west Texas. Doege, who played in those conditions in high school, doesn’t think it will be a problem for him. Getting zip on the ball and throwing a tight spiral is key to throwing into or against the wind.
“When you live out there, you don’t even think about the wind,” Brown said. “Seth threw a really tight ball. When I went out there in the spring of 2010, it blew more than it did in the fall.”
Seth Doege is now an offensive quality control analyst at USC, and since the Pac-12 is preparing to open its season Nov. 6, he won’t be one of the many in Lubbock to cheer Jarret on. But with the career path Seth has taken, and Jarret played under Seth at Bowling Green from 2017-18, Jarret wants to follow in his big brother’s footsteps.
“Growing up, it was like an unreal experience for me,” Jarret said. “Just watching him go to work on Saturdays is exactly what I wanted to do. Seeing him sling the ball around made me go want to play in an Air Raid offense just like that. I’ve gained a lot of knowledge from him and I still do today, and hopefully one day, I’ll get to coach with him, too. So I’m just really following in his footsteps and trying to be just like him.”
The only difference, though, is Jarret hopes the Mountaineers come out on top during his playing days.
“I was hoping I could one day, hopefully, reverse the roles.”
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