Garrett Greene understands that the offense didn’t play their best against Penn State a year ago.
Greene completed just 16-27 passes for 162 scoreless yards but did rush for 71 yards and a touchdown in the 38-15 season-opening loss to the Nittany Lions as the Mountaineers mustered just 15-points.
“Just pocket presence. Watched the tape back from last year and was super skittish in the pocket,” he said. “Didn’t trust the guys in front of me.”
That wasn’t the case as the season progressed for the Mountaineers quarterback as the offense hit its stride halfway through the year and was playing much more efficient football.
“I think that’s something as I played more in the season and as the season progressed I got better at,” Greene said. “Also, we’re a better football team than last year. The offense kind of got rolling toward the middle of the year and I don’t think we had that opening up last year.”
The offense had several opportunities to make things interesting but were unable to convert in key chances to make the game more interesting than the final result.
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Now, a big part of that was a veteran Penn State defense which made things hard on an offense that still had a lot of new faces across the board. That group lost some key players but still features plenty of pitfalls this coming season as the Nittany Lions again boast a group loaded with talent.
Penn State has a pair of impressive edge rushers in Abdul Carter and Dani Dennis-Sutton as both are long options that get off the ball fast. The Big 10 Conference program also added key pieces from the transfer portal and has plenty of skill, size, and speed on this year’s edition of the defense.
But the Mountaineers also return a lot of production and have worked to get better at those shortcomings that haunted this team at times a season ago.
“Just having a year under our belt especially on offense we have so many people returning,” Greene said. “Obviously we lost two key pieces last year but as an offense, having everyone basically returning is a huge confidence boost for us now it’s just about going to play.”
Greene believes that the Mountaineers are more equipped to throw the ball on early downs due to the work being done in the off-season and the trust that the coaching staff has in him and those around him. But ultimately, the offense is going to do what they do best with running the football and taking shots downfield.
“This off-season was really kind of important to continue to get better at what we were good at last year and that was running the football but then also the things we weren’t good at getting those better so we can feel like those are a strength,” Greene said.
West Virginia will have a chance to showcase if those improvements show up on gameday against a defense that will be one of the best that they’ll square off against on paper this season.
“We have a really good team and they have a really good team so I’m looking forward to it,” he said.
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