MORGANTOWN — Rich Rodriguez doesn’t buy into the old football adage that, if you have two or three quarterbacks, then you really have none.
Right now, Rodriguez has five scholarship signal-callers in the West Virginia University quarterback room that he really feels good about. That, in his mind, should lead to spirited competition for the starting job – though that doesn’t negate the possibility of multiple quarterbacks impacting the offense.
“You know, we’ve got three quarterbacks that have taken reps or started (Football Bowl Subdivision) football games,” Rodriguez said this week, “and then we’ve got a couple talented freshmen. … So I think that room is showing pretty good progress.”
One (or perhaps more) of the five will take over for Garrett Greene, who graduated after spending two years as WVU’s starting QB. Of the five, three quarterbacks – Nicco Marchiol, Texas A&M transfer Jaylen Henderson and Charlotte transfer Max Brown – have appeared in FBS games. Marchiol and Henderson have both started multiple games. Redshirt freshman Khalil Wilkins and true freshman Scotty Fox round out the five.
While Rodriguez’s spread option system is nothing new to WVU fans, who watched Rodriguez teams dominate with it in the early 2000s, it’s completely new to the quarterbacks trying to operate it. Yet that’s not a worry for Rodriguez, who said his offense is one that quarterbacks inexperienced with it can learn it quickly.
It’s a “freshman friendly” offense, he said. And it has proven to work for young QBs in the past. Rasheed Marshall was a sophomore when he took over as starting quarterback, and Pat White was a freshman when he at first shared starting duties with Adam Bednarik and then took over full time as starter. Both Marshall and White are now WVU Athletics Hall of Famers.
An offense that’s quick to learn is a necessity these days, Rodriguez said.
“I said this way before the portal days, simply because you’re going to lose guys,” he said. “Now, since the portal days and so much roster turnover, I saw somewhere that like 60% of starting quarterbacks in (the FBS) were transfer guys. So you better have a freshman friendly type of system.
“That doesn’t mean experience doesn’t help, because it does,” he added. “But we’re trying to have a freshman friendly system for all of our guys, especially on offense.”
It will help that WVU’s quarterbacks will have a trio of people well-versed in the system to teach them. Along with Rodriguez, one is White, the most successful quarterback to run WVU’s spread option, now an assistant quarterbacks coach. He won four straight bowl games, including Sugar and Fiesta bowls, with it. The third is Rodriguez’s son Rhett Rodriguez, who is the Mountaineers’ top quarterback coach.
What Rich Rodriguez likes about that group is that all three have the same mission – to make sure WVU’s quarterbacks are as successful as possible within the offensive system. Personal agendas, the head coach said, aren’t going to come into play.
“I’ve been everywhere all across the country,” Rich Rodriguez said. “When you get to jobs at this level, the NFL or Power Four level, a lot of coaches or staff members get territorial. In other words, they just kind of protect themselves because the jobs are such good jobs. They want to make sure that they look good, and that’s their priority, more than the team, or more than winning
“That’s the one thing I’ve addressed since day one,” he continued. “Our staff, everybody’s going to have pride in what they do at their job. But you can’t be territorial. You’ve got to do what’s best for the team.”
What’s best might be using multiple quarterbacks in a game. Rodriguez has operated both ways. Marshall and White became entrenched starters, but White and Bednarik shared the job for part of a season. When Rodriguez was offensive coordinator at Ole Miss, he used both Matt Corral and John Rhys Plumlee.
Whether Rodriguez employs more than one quarterback during his second stint in Morgantown remains to be seen, but he’s confident that all of them can contribute if called upon.
“I hope I have three quarterbacks, or four quarterbacks, that are good enough to win with,” he said. “That’ll give me a comfortable feeling that we can do anything we want. We’re not worried about, oh gosh, we can’t run that (play) because he might get hurt. There goes the season.
“I think the mentality we have in that room, there’s some really, really competitive guys,” he added, “and they’re going to want to show what they can do, both in practice and obviously in the game.”
— Story by Derek Redd
