MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Throughout much of September, West Virginia’s offense strived to display more of a downfield passing game as the Mountaineers struggled in that regard through their first five games.
That began to change in a 41-39 loss at Houston when quarterback Garrett Greene threw for 391 yards on 20 completions, registering 11 passes of 15-plus yards in a career-high passing performance.
While Greene hasn’t come close to matching that yardage total since, he has thrown for at least 150 yards in each of the last five games while surpassing 200 on three occasions — something the Mountaineers did only once over the season’s first five contests, that coming in a runaway victory over FCS foe Duquesne.
“We wanted to make sure that he had a really good understanding of what we were trying to do,” WVU head coach Neal Brown said. “We were careful in the Penn State game. That could’ve been a real detriment to his confidence level, because how good they are in that environment. He missed a couple throws, but he played well. He threw for a bunch of yards versus Duquesne. Going back to TCU week, he didn’t practice all week until Thursday. He goes out and plays pretty well for not practicing. For him, it was like, ‘I’m fine and I can do this.’”
Greene began the season with 162 passing yards and 71 rushing yards and a touchdown in a loss to the Nittany Lions. The following week, he threw for 240 yards with four touchdowns against the Dukes.
Brown felt it could be a turning point for Greene, his confidence and the Mountaineers’ offense as a whole.
Then Greene left the following week against Pitt with an ankle injury suffered on West Virginia’s second offensive series, restricting him to throwing twice in that game and missing the next one against Texas Tech.
Nicco Marchiol replaced Greene for seven-plus quarters at quarterback and there was thought he would again start WVU’s fifth game at TCU, before Marchiol suffered an ankle injury in practice that led to Greene returning perhaps one game sooner than originally anticipated.
Against the Horned Frogs, Greene completed only 10-of-21 passes for 142 yards, but rushed 12 times for 80 yards and two touchdowns, including a 35-yard scoring run. He displayed enough in a 24-21 road win that Brown felt Greene was back to being near or at full strength.
“He made some wild runs and wild throws. That touchdown run versus TCU where he pulled it down and scrambled was almost four miles per hour faster than he’d ran in two-and-half weeks,” Brown said. “We had a 2-minute drill right before the half with like 30 seconds to go and we could’ve just taken a knee and I told the guys on the headset, ‘we’re going to go try and score here.’ Let’s see what he has and he threw a BB on a dig and setup a field goal. He had a scramble and threw that dig and setup the field goal that we made, but it was taken away because [offensive lineman/tight end Nick Malone] jumped offsides. From that point forward, I was like, ‘OK, he’s ready, let’s go do this.’”
In six games since TCU, West Virginia has scored 34 or more points five times.
As the season has progressed, Brown’s made mention of putting more on Greene’s shoulders in terms of what he can handle offensively. Save for what was an all-around poor showing two weeks ago in the Mountaineers’ 59-20 loss at Oklahoma, the quarterback has performed to the point that Brown has also remarked Greene gives the team a chance to win any outing.
Perhaps most importantly, the head coach has developed a better understanding of what best suits Greene, something the head coach and quarterback have worked at to make the signal-caller as comfortable as possible.
“We started back in the spring and he’s kind of a trial and error guy,” Brown said. “He’s going to [say], ‘yes sir, yes sir, yes sir.’ He says that, and I’m like, ‘we’ll see if he really gets that or not.’ Trial and error a little bit in the spring and the same thing in OTAs over the summer and in fall camp. Kind of cautious in the Penn State game, because I wanted to make sure he had a level of success. In that environment, versus that defense in the first game of the season could’ve done some real harm and set back his confidence level.
“We were getting ready to kind of break wide open and do what we’ve been doing against Pitt when he got hurt. He had practiced really well for two weeks and threw those deep balls well versus Duquesne after the lightning break. His confidence was really coming along and then the injury hit. After TCU, once I felt like he’s healthy and can run, that’s kind of when we were like, ‘we’re going to win games because of him.’”