Nine practices in spring, and West Virginia head coach Neal Brown has seen both good and bad from quarterbacks Garrett Greene and Nicco Marchiol.
Greene and Marchiol are both capable runners, but also have limited experience. Marchiol — a redshirt freshman — appeared in only three games last season. Marchiol passed for 61 yards and a touchdown, on 4-for-13 passing. Marchiol rushed the ball six times for 32 yards. Marchiol saw the majority of his action in West Virginia’s final game of the 2022 season against Oklahoma State. Playing in pouring rain, Marchiol was limited in his passing attempts as West Virginia focused on running the ball.
Out of the two, Greene — a junior — has more experience of the two. Greene started two games last season and rescued West Virginia against Oklahoma. Greene passed for 493 yards, five touchdowns, and three interceptions last season while completing 55 percent of his passes. Greene also rushed for 276 yards and five touchdowns in 2022.
Brown’s approach for the two quarterbacks is based on building a long-term picture of the two between now and the end of fall camp.
“This is going to be a deal that goes through the summer, end of fall camp.,” Brown said.
Nearing the end of last season Brown made a decision to stick with the two guys he had in house to compete for the job in 2023. Brown and his staff did not go after a quarterback in the transfer portal due to his belief in both Greene and Marchiol.
“I feel decision making time at the end of the year, I felt really good about what direction we needed to go and the direction we needed to go is we had two really good candidates,” Brown said. “Through nine practices it really confirmed my thoughts in early November.”
Both quarterbacks have had ups and downs this spring. Marchiol returned to practice this week after sitting out Saturday’s practice in the stadium due to an illness.
“As far as Nicco and Garrett, there’s some really high points because both of them are really talented. They do some of the same things well, but they’re different,” Brown said. “They’re both really talented but they’re both inexperienced. Their good looks really good.”
Brown said today at practice, Marchiol was able to hit a big play for a touchdown after reading an RPO, but he also had a “huge error” in a two-minute situation. Same thing with Greene as he “had a great touchdown to CJ Donaldson” but took a bad sack and grounding penalty.
“There’s some ups and downs but I’ll say this is I’m excited about what both of them can do because their really good stuff is really good,” Brown said. “And we’re at a point too where we’re trying to put them in situations if they screw up at least we’re learning. We’re trying not to make the same mistake.”
