West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez understands that his quarterback room isn’t perfect, but after exiting the spring it only reinforced his thoughts on the group coming into it.
The head coach admittedly puts more on the plate of players at that spot than any other on the roster as far as learning goes and throughout the 15 practices they displayed the ability to handle it well.
“But there’s a whole other step that they can take,” he said.
The group was able to showcase what they could do in front of fans at the Gold-Blue Showcase and while Rodriguez is quick to remind that he’ll have a better judgment of what unfolded after watching the film he did see some positives and negatives out of the position room.
“I thought they ran pretty well. Thought they needed to get rid of the ball quicker at times. A couple throws we missed but it’s a very conscientious group. They want to be good,” he said.
Overall, Rodriguez has been encouraged by the skill set that the quarterbacks bring to the table and their overall commitment as well as their competitive nature.
Rodriguez elected to use the quarterbacks in the run game during the scrimmage although both Nicco Marchiol and Jaylen Henderson donned black jerseys signifying they were just allowed to be tagged instead of being fully live like the rest of the room.
That decision was made because Rodriguez had been able to see both of them multiple times in the spring which gave him the confidence to take that approach.
“So I got a chance to see them live running and they’re the older experienced guys so I didn’t have to see that today,” Rodriguez said.
Both of those older quarterback options also have experience at the highest level so there isn’t the concern as well over how they’re going to handle the bright lights that come with playing the position.
“Everything’s different at the quarterback live. We had to see that a little bit this spring,” he said.
The Mountaineers battle will continue past the summer at the position but Rodriguez admitted that he isn’t looking at what has unfolded before with each of the options and instead will be focused on what happens in Morgantown under center.
“My judgement and opinion of our guys is what they did right here. If we sign them we must have liked what they did in the past, then we’ll judge them here,” he said.
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