It is no secret that West Virginia football’s priority this offseason is finding a replacement for Will Grier. What does the quarterback battle look like?
West Virginia football is no stranger when it comes to good quarterback play.
Since the 2000 NFL Draft, West Virginia has had five quarterbacks selected. Those quarterbacks include Marc Bulger, Geno Smith, Pat White, Rasheed Marshall and the latest WVU quarterback to get drafted, Will Grier.
Most FBS schools would be more than happy to say they have had five quarterbacks drafted between 2000 and 2018. Even Skyler Howard and Clint Trickett (quarterbacks who didn’t get drafted), did some nice things for the Mountaineers when they were under center.
West Virginia fans have gotten use to solid quarterback play, and with a new head coach and a new starting quarterback in 2019, they’re hoping that it continues.
The 2019 quarterback competition seems to be between two transfer quarterbacks: Austin Kendall, who transferred after the end of the 2018 season from Oklahoma, and Jack Allison, who transferred from Miami in 2017 and was Grier’s back up last season. Trey Lowe III is a redshirt freshman, and while he isn’t getting the publicity the other two quarterbacks are, anything can happen in a quarterback race.
Each quarterback is trying to do what they can to impress new head coach, Neal Brown. He will keep the spread style offense West Virginia has had, but you can expect a different twist to it with the running game being a more important feature, as it was when he was the coach at Troy.
With that said, let’s take a deeper dive at each quarterback and look at some of their pros and cons and what makes them a quarterback worthy of the starting job.