Last Saturday against Iowa State, JT Daniels and the West Virginia offense were not themselves.
West Virginia’s quarterback completed just eight passes for 81 yards, while throwing one touchdown and an interception. Daniels has thrown for less than 200 yards in two of his last three games and has five interceptions over West Virginia’s last three games as well.
“JT he was just off. He really was,” West Virginia head coach Neal Brown said. “I think they got to him and they got some pressure up the middle on him. We had some drops there, that those hurt the quarterback as well. And he’s got to play better. He’s got to play better, I think we can do some things, get him some easier completions.”
Daniels had a season-low in completion percentage, completing 36.4% of his passes. His previous eight games prior, he had less than 60% completions just twice all season.
When asked if there could be an injury bothering Daniels, Brown did not want to speculate, saying he does not want to try and assume an injury is causing his poor performance.
“You’d have to ask him about injuries because I don’t try to speak on a playing perspective whether an injury is affecting him,” Brown said. “I don’t think he played his best, but I don’t think it was due to an injury.”
Daniels and the Mountaineers are set to Oklahoma this Saturday, and Brown thinks his quarterback will be just fine against the Sooners.
“I will say this, I think the kid’s going to bounce back and play well this week I really do,” Brown said. “He had a good mindset on Sunday, a good mindset [Tuesday] morning.”
West Virginia has begun to insert backup quarterback Garrett Greene more into their game plan on a weekly basis. Brown said though West Virginia will continue to stick with Daniels and says the team believes in him as their quarterback.
“Oklahoma, JT’s going to start,” Brown said. “There’s really not a question within this building he’s going to be the starter. The thing is too, our players really believe in him, which I think is important.”
Daniels on the season has passed for 2,042 yards, 13 touchdowns, and eight interceptions.
Photo by Aaron Parker, Blue Gold Sports
