After a field goal on the opening drive of the second half, West Virginia had mustered on 38 yards on 9 plays over the next three and fallen behind 28-17 at home against Kansas.
The Mountaineers then made the decision to move to the two-minute offense and that’s when things changed on that side of the ball with senior quarterback Garrett Greene engineering the attack. First, Greene led the offense on a nine-play, 75-yard drive for a touchdown while eating just 2:12 on the clock.
On that drive, Greene completed 4-7 passes for 60 yards, while also displaying his ability to run the football rushing for 7 more yards and drawing a personal foul late hit.
After a three and out by the defense, Greene would respond yet again with a 67-yard touchdown drive on just 7 plays eating up 1:56 and leaving just 26 seconds on the clock to give the Mountaineers the lead.
Again, Greene used his legs to pick up a critical third down and made a 15-yard touchdown toss to Rodney Gallagher as the offense looked in rhythm with the fast tempo.
“We work two-minute offense a lot and that’s what we were in for the last two drives of the game. We’ve been pretty good, if you all have been paying attention, we’ve been pretty good in two-minute drives for really two years in a row,” head coach Neal Brown said.
It was Greene’s ability to scramble that proved critical as the senior quarterback was able to make a number of plays by extending things and delivering the football.
“Garrett was up and down until it was winning time and at winning time he won. That’s what he is. He’s a winner. He’s an elite competitor. He’s one of those guys that I may coach for a long time and never have a guy that’s as competitive as he is,” Brown said. “And the ability to make plays with his feet, especially in two-minute situations.”
West Virginia made the decision to go to the two-minute offense probably a drive later than they wanted to but, it was something that Brown had talked about during halftime if the unit struggled. The reason was simple as it would allow it to open things up without an attached tight end and give Greene room to get it to playmakers in space as well as allow Greene to pick up yards with his feet.
It’s not something you can do at all times because teams would have answers for it, but it was the perfect situation and allowed the offense to find their footing. For example, teams are typically preparing for the Mountaineers' run game concepts, quarterback run game and shot plays first but against the Jayhawks Brown felt that it was best to spread them out and try to get favorable matchups or let Greene run the ball.
It’s something that West Virginia made it a point to utilize after the Penn State game and Brown has tried to make Greene understand that if the play isn’t there, use his feet in order to make things happen to spark the offense.
“Two-minute offense around the country it’s your staple plays, staple protections things you feel really confident and things you’ve logged a lot of reps in going back to spring ball to fall camp, so we just stuck to that, and it worked out for us,” Greene said.
And the message is getting across loud and clear to his signal caller.
“I think I always trust my legs and Coach Brown has done a phenomenal job of giving me the freedom to just tuck it and run. There’s been some growing pains for sure with it, but he’s comfortable with my decision to tuck it and run,” Greene said.
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