WVU’s offense is full of youth as spring practices begin

Mar. 25—MORGANTOWN — Through injuries and absences, WVU’s skill positions were filled with youth and inexperience when the Mountaineers opened Spring practice Monday morning.

Other than the offensive line, WVU’s entire offense skews younger this season. In addition, the Mountaineers are without senior quarterback Garrett Greene, who missed Monday to attend his grandfather’s funeral, as well as junior running back CJ Donaldson and senior tight end Kole Taylor, who will both be limited as they recover from injuries this spring.

Greene will be back for the team’s next practice on Wednesday, but his absence left the Mountaineers with only two scholarship quarterbacks on Monday, redshirt sophomore Nicco Marchiol and redshirt freshman Sean Boyle. Marchiol played in nine games as the team’s primary backup last season.

“We’re going to be intentional about getting Nicco a lot of first-team reps, ” WVU head coach Neal Brown said last week. “Playing that position is really hard and sometimes it happens really fast for people and sometimes it takes a little time and it’s taken some time for him. He’s done some good things, but it’s taken a little bit of time. I think he’s a little bit more at ease because he’s more confident and so he doesn’t have as much stress on him.”

Serving as the top quarterback on Monday, offensive coordinator Chad Scott said he’s already seen improvement in Marchiol’s game.

“He had a bad habit of just staring down defenders all the time and making poor decisions, ” Scott said. “(Monday) he made a thrown, a touchdown to EJ Horton, where if he had just stared at the defender, that would have told him not to throw the ball. He looked at the coverage and the grass and based on that, it told him to throw the ball and it looked like a scary throw, but it was a phenomenal throw that went for a touchdown.”

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/wvus-offense-full-youth-spring-023200202.html

Author : The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.

Publish date : 2024-03-26 02:32:00

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