Mountaineers undecided on quarterback, need more from skill players – WV MetroNews

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — It remains to be decided whether quarterback Nicco Marchiol will make his second start at Saturday at TCU or if Garrett Greene returns from an ankle injury that’s sidelined him for the last seven-plus quarters.

Marchiol played all but six offensive snaps in the Mountaineers’ 17-6 win against Pitt on September 16 and orchestrated the offense the following week in a 20-13 victory over Texas Tech that marked the southpaw’s first collegiate start.

“We’re going to see. Garrett was available on Saturday, but he did not warmup very well,” Brown said. “He’d have emergency been ready, but we’d have had to help him out. I really don’t want to play him until he’s fully healthy. He didn’t make a whole lot of progress from Wednesday to Saturday. He worked with our trainers today. We’ll see what he has Tuesday and Wednesday. I really don’t have anymore than that. If he can practice full go on Tuesday and Wednesday, then he’ll play. If he can’t, it’ll probably be the same. That would give him two weeks from Thursday to get himself healthy.”

Regardless of who’s behind center for West Virginia when it battles the defending national runner-up in its first Big 12 road game, Brown made it clear the Mountaineers need more from their skill players to yield better offensive production.

West Virginia has a paltry 467 total yards over its last two games, including 159 passing yards. After passing for 60 yards against Pitt, the Mountaineers managed 99 yards through the air in the win over the Red Raiders.

“We didn’t play well enough at running back or wide receiver,” Brown said. “We have to play better. We have to do more. We have to make more plays to help the quarterbacks. Our pass game all-around has to be better. We called a decent number of pass plays, but we just didn’t do a very good job executing. We can throw it better at quarterback. We need to protect him a little better. We just didn’t make a whole lot of plays in space and we have to do better than that.”

Save for taking a knee off the game’s final play, West Virginia had five second-half series and four ended with a punt, including a trio of three-and-outs.

Marchiol was the team’s leading rusher with 72 yards on 15 carries, while tailback CJ Donaldson was held to 48 yards on 15 attempts. All but 4 of Donaldson’s yards came in the opening half.

“He didn’t finish runs as well as he can,” Brown said. “He has some nagging things, but nothing that’s going to keep him out. It’s hard to play running back. There’s a lot of shots. I laugh and tell him the quarterback is handing it off and you’re running it, so it’s going to be 9-on-11 every time. There’s going to be a free hitter at some point. He has to finish his runs better. If you look how he ran the ball versus Penn State and Pitt, he can do that. He knows it and he can play better.”

A largely unproven group of wideouts continues to struggle creating separation from defenders, which in turn, should help make throws easier for either quarterback.

West Virginia’s longest play in its last two games is a 21-yard pass from wideout Traylon Ray to tight end Kole Taylor on a double pass play. During that stretch, Mountaineer receivers have combined for a mere nine receptions for 80 yards while Taylor has been the team’s most productive pass-catcher and hauled in a touchdown in both games.

Devin Carter, a North Carolina State transfer who had 90 receiving yards in his first game at WVU but was sidelined for his second, has two receptions for 21 yards the last two games. Despite being targeted six times, Carter made one catch for 6 yards against the Red Raiders. Both of Marchiol’s interceptions were intended for Carter, the second of which first hit off the wideout.

“Devin didn’t play well. I don’t think he’d mind me saying this — he didn’t play as good as we expected him to play or need him to play,” Brown said. “He’s our No. 1 guy and he earned that opportunity. 

“But his grandmother passed away late in the week last week and I think that bothered him. Sometimes in college sports, we lose the fact that some of these kids are dealing with a lot off the field and that naturally is going to turn into some on-field performance. I’m not giving him an excuse or an out. It doesn’t affect how we’re coaching him, but I think it affected his play and I probably underestimated that going into the game.”

Carter and fellow wideouts Cortez Braham and Preston Fox logged the most snaps of the wideouts against Texas Tech, followed by Ray and Hudson Clement.

EJ Horton, a Marshall transfer out injured for the first two games, was in on only three snaps. However, he was targeted on a deep pass that was an incompletion in the fourth quarter, marking the second straight week the Mountaineers took a downfield shot to Horton.

“We’re going to shorten the rotation up,” Brown said. “EJ Horton is going to play more. I’d love for him to have made a play on that [deep shot]. He, Hudson and Traylon Ray, we’re going to get those guys more up and ready.”

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Safety Keyshawn Cobb will miss the remainder of the season. A Buffalo transfer who played in the first two games, Cobb recorded two tackles in a win over Duquesne.

He’s been sidelined since and the senior will not return in 2023. Cobb can use this year to redshirt and return in 2024 if he chooses to do so.

“He’s going to get surgery this week,” Brown said, “and he’ll be out for the year.”