West Virginia head coach Neal Brown held his weekly radio show on Thursday, giving injury updates on his team as well as previewing the game against Baylor on Saturday.
Injuries
The biggest unknown for the Mountaineers this week is who will start at quarterback.
Garrett Greene has not played since the first half of WVU's game against Kansas State on Oct. 19, missing WVU's game on Oct. 26, as well as last week against Cincinnati. Although he did not play last week, Greene was cleared to travel and was only going to play in what Brown called an emergency situation.
Brown said Greene practiced this week and he will be available but did not offer anything up on whether Greene will start.
Nicco Marchiol served as the starting quarterback each of the two games Greene missed, completing 59 percent of his passes for 354 yards, three touchdowns, and an interception. He also rushed for a combined 57 yards and a score.
Elsewhere on the injury front is wide receiver Hudson Clement, who missed the Cincinnati game.
Brown also said he practiced and will be available this weekend.
"He will be back, and we’ll need him," Brown said of Clement. Clement is second on the team in receiving yards this season with 383.
Brown also said Aubrey Burks and Ayden Garnes will once again be out on defense, as well as Jaden Bray on offense. He announced both of those moves earlier in the week.
Beating Baylor
West Virginia is going to face a familiar face who is leading a steaking offense as Jake Spavital will return to Morgantown as Baylor's offensive coordinator.
Brown said what Spavital is doing is fitting his personnel well on offense as well as finding ways to play with tempo at times.
"I think there’s a lot of offenses that look similar. What I will say, what [Spavital's] doing is they’re playing to his personnel, and he’s really made a commitment to the run game during his three-game win streak they’re on," Brown said.
As far as tempo on offense, Brown said he expects to see it early, and maybe they will slow down later if his defense starts to figure some things out.
"My expectation is they’re going to try to play really fast early against us... I think most people have the ability to go fast at times, only a few schools go fast all the time, and there’s good and bad to it… if you don’t make first downs, it puts the rest of your football team behind the sticks," Brown said.
Brown will be calling WVU's offense, while Baylor head coach Dave Aranda will be calling Baylor's defense.
Brown said he is really good at picking up on the little things, and that makes it challenging to go against him.
"He has very few tendencies whatsoever. He does a great job. They play three different fronts, and they move in and out those three fronts within a series. They mix it up really well, their pressures are gameplan pressures," Brown said.
Brown is 3-1 all-time against Aranda.
"You can tell he does a really good job of not only studying opponent but what they do well," Brown said.
----------
• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.
• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.
• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel
• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan, @wesleyshoe
