It’s currently an unknown if West Virginia quarterback Garrett Greene will be able to play this Saturday against Texas Tech.
If he’s unable to play, backup Nicco Marchiol — who played all but the first series against Pitt — will take the reigns for head coach Neal Brown’s offense.
Greene was sidelined with an ankle injury against Pitt, and the plan was for him to sit out practice on Monday and Tuesday of this week. If Brown has to turn to Marchiol, he expects a better performance from the redshirt-freshman, who went 6 for 9 passing for 60 yards and a touchdown against Pitt.
“There’s a lot trust with him in the locker room, guys believe in him,” Brown said of Marchiol. “You’ll see much improved play by Nicco when he gets the majority of reps.”
Brown said time will tell with Greene’s ankle, as he doesn’t want to limit his athleticism and speed.
“We always go into a game with a plan for the backup quarterback that he’s practiced,” Brown said.
As far as Marchiol needing to improve ahead of Texas Tech, the Mountaineer game plan will almost undoubtedly look different from Pitt to the Red Raiders.
Against Pitt, WVU ran the ball 51 times and only attempted 11 passes. Marchiol is similar to Greene in the dual-threat ability, but his game still has his own differences as well.
“He has got really high end ability. He can run the football. He showed good speed versus Duquesne but he’s more of an in-between the tackles type of runner, he’s real physical,” Brown said. “He’s really good with balls in between the hashes, he’s got good velocity on it. He throws the deep ball well. He didn’t throw the ball down the field as he can in the game (against Pitt). Some of that’s just timing issues that when he practices he’ll be better and then he can do all the stuff in the RPO game.”
Whether it be Greene or Marchiol starting against Texas Tech on Saturday, Brown said the belief is either guy will be well prepared to not only play, but to play well.
“Our expectation is if he plays that we’ll be really good on offense,” Brown said. “I think that’s the expectation staff wise, expectation for the players on the offensive side of the ball.”
