Rich Rodriguez provides update on quarterback position
Rich Rodriguez again didn’t leave much to the imagination on when a potential announcement could come to who will be the starting quarterback for his football team this fall.
That’s because Rodriguez doubled down that it would be revealed when the West Virginia offense took the field against Robert Morris in the season opener.
“If we have the first possession, you’ll know about 2:02 p.m.,” he said.
While the veteran head coach was being somewhat facetious in his answer, Rodriguez did say that he fully recognizes that the ongoing battle in that position room will be a hot topic of conversation. And when it comes to the teams he follows he also wants to know who will be under center.
“I don’t mind being asked every day because I’m curious too, right?” he said. “There’s a process of how we’re doing it.”
West Virginia currently has five players getting reps at the position and all of them have to be given the opportunity to show if they can be the guy for the team. While Rodriguez didn’t point out those players by name the expectation is that it would be redshirt junior Nicco Marchiol, redshirt senior Jaylen Henderson, redshirt junior Max Brown, freshman Scotty Fox and redshirt freshman Khalil Wilkins.
Rodriguez acknowledged once again that he hopes that ends up being “guys” instead of a singular option as he wants multiple quarterbacks he can feel comfortable with that can win games.
“If I have three quarterbacks that are good enough to win with then I’ll play all three. I won’t pull a guy out for just a mistake and if he’s hot I’ll keep him in there but it doesn’t bother me to rotate quarterbacks if they’re good enough to win with,” he said.
As part of that, Rodriguez admitted that if that does occur, they will try to find out what each of those options do best but have enough variety where you can’t just cue on certain plays when one is in the game.
“Part of our deal in the next three weeks with our quarterbacks is which plays are they most comfortable with? What do they do the best? And we’ll have that as part of our mindset going into the season,” Rodriguez said.
Quarterbacks coach Rhett Rodriguez is in charge of managing the reps at the position but the focus is for those competing to prove that they are in that category of good enough to win with and they’ll play. One thing that helps with the rep count is the number that West Virginia will go through in a single practice so that makes the evaluation part of the equation easier.
As to when Rodriguez and his staff will start to narrow down the options, Rodriguez said that it depends on how the quarterbacks play as they’ll determine the next steps.
“I don’t have a timeline to shorten it down. But at some point, you have to have one guy come out for the first week, right?” he said.
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