It hasn’t always been a smooth road this season for West Virginia quarterback Jarret Doege.

But the redshirt senior is likely playing the best football of his career over the past two games. Over those contests, Doege has thrown for 627 yards and three touchdowns while completing 69-percent of his passes in leading the Mountaineers to a pair of wins.

Doege tossed for a career-high 370 yards against Iowa State and while he had one poor ball that was returned for an interception was otherwise poised and efficient. The signal caller also wasn’t afraid to challenge the Cyclones deep and completed seven passes over 15+ yards.

In fact, all three of his touchdowns were over 20+ yards in the air and he had only two in the first seven games on those type of throws.

“You’re talking about a guy that’s gotten beat up here a little unjustly, but sometimes quarterbacks get too much credit, too much blame,” head coach Neal Brown said. “But that guy battled.”

Doege threw the ball a total of 46 times and was not sacked as he led the offense on scoring drives in half of their possessions against one of the best statistical defenses in the nation. It’s the type of performance that West Virginia thought they would be getting when Doege played like this during fall camp but as the season progressed critical mistakes that couldn’t be overcome were the biggest issue.

The focus in the off-season was about improving his ability in the pocket but Doege struggled when thrown into the fire at times when asked to showcase that.

That wasn’t the case against the Horned Frogs and Cyclones and with better protection up front perhaps it’s the start of what this offense could potentially be down the stretch run of the season.

That confidence to stay in the pocket has helped with his ability to connect at all areas of the field and has allowed Doege to trigger the ball for an offense that has averaged 33.5 points over the last two.

“I thought he played extremely well and he knew he had to play well coming into the game. Sometimes that makes it even harder,” Brown said.

There has been more trust in making those throws down the field and that is going to be important against an Oklahoma State defense that plays aggressive outside.

"He's been more confident and committed to it. It's good to see he's been in that mindset," coordinator Gerad Parker said. "There's a commitment to making sure he believes in that and stays aggressive."

Doege himself has worked hard on trying to respond to adversity and moving onto the next play. But there is no question that he is playing with more confidence than at any point this season.

“I’m in a great state of mind, I’m confident right now in what I’m doing I know my teammates believe in me and I believe in them,” he said. “The coaches believe in me and that’s all I can ask for. It doesn’t really matter what happens outside this building as long as these guys believe in me.”

With four games left, the story is not yet written on Doege but there is an opportunity to certainly close the book a lot better than it started this year.

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