Marchiol

MORGANTOWN — Time for a Pop Quiz:

Question: What’s important in football?

Answer: The quarterback.

It’s as simple as that. That’s not your’s truly speaking. That’s Rich Rodriguez speaking as he reacquires the responsibility of rebuilding West Virginia into a winning contending program.

“It’s a team game but the most important position that has to be coached well is the quarterback. You don’t ask me about the free safety,” he said after Thursday’s second practice of the spring.

And so it was the topic of the day centered upon the quarterback room, where Rodriguez has three veteran quarterbacks including holdover fan favorite Nicco Marchiol and a couple of freshmen.

Who wins the job is the No. 1 decision Rodriguez must make but he has a whole lot of help with that as he has two assistant coaches he really trusts joining him in coaching them — Pat White, whom he groomed into probably the best quarterback ever at the school, and his own son, Rhett, who played for him.

We know, we know. There’s talk of nepotism going around in Rodriguez hiring his son so we might as well get that out of the way first.

Why the two he chose for the job?

“First, they know the system,” Rodriguez said. “Those guys not only know the system, they played in it. Pat has played in it forever. Now I told Pat, I’m not hiring you because of what you did back in the 2000s but because you can help us win now.”

And Rhett lived in the system, day in and day out.

“With the quarterback, I need as many eyes as I can get. Pat will look at certain things. Rhett is really smart and he not only knows the system but knows how we want to implement it. Frankly, I also needed someone to offset my … Er, whatever. I’m in your face. Rhett can offset me a little bit. He’s got the perfect personality for that.

“He’s been working a long time for this; so has Pat. It’s nice to have both of them there.”

It’s too early to analyze the quarterbacks. While Rodriguez has had time to look them over, two practices in shorts are a long way from lining up against Pitt in what promises to be one of the most intriguing Backyard Brawls of all time.

“The progress of the quarterbacks has been good to see,” Rodriguez admitted. “We’ve got three quarterbacks who have taken reps or started in Division 1 football games and we’ve got a couple of freshmen. That room has shown progress, but then again, it’s all new to them and it’s just the second practice.”

First, before they can really show off their stuff, they have to feel comfortable in the system. Rodriguez understands that and that’s why this spring is far more for evaluation of their abilities than it is of their skills in running the offense.

“I always said, even way before the portal days, that you have to have a system that is freshman-friendly, simply because you are going to lose guys. Now, with the portal system, there’s so much turnover that like 60% of the starting quarterbacks in Division 1 were transfer guys,” Rodriguez said.

Frustrated quarterbacks don’t often stay long and Rodriguez acknowledges that.

“You better have a freshman-friendly type of system. That doesn’t mean experience doesn’t help, because it does, but we’re trying to be freshman-friendly for all of our guys,” he said.

He knows that early on in his WVU coaching career that first Rasheed Marshall and then White flourished as freshmen, so he believes it can be done.

“Rasheed was redshirted a little bit. Same with Pat. Look how smart I was, Pat wasn’t a full-time starter until the Louisville game. Pat goes in there after Adam [Bednarik] got hurt and rallies us back and I’m like, ‘Man, I should have started him all along,'” Rodriguez continued.

“The thing is, sometimes your first and second quarterbacks aren’t live during practices at the beginning of the season, so even though they run you don’t get to see how well they run until they get into live action. That was the way with Pat, when he was live/live he was even faster.

“It was the same at Arizona. We had a quarterback, Kahlil Tate, who didn’t start against Colorado and in the first quarter we put him in there and he ran for like 300 yards or something. Mike McIntyre, who was the Colorado coach, was like ‘Where did he come from? How smart are you?’ And I’m like, ‘I know, he should have been starting all along.

“You have to figure out how to evaluate your quarterbacks from a run standpoint while not putting them in harm’s way.”

Rodriguez, because of the way he uses his quarterbacks, likes to have more than one that can win a game for him.

“I hope I have three quarterbacks or four quarterbacks who are good enough to win with. That will give me a true feeling we can do anything we want and not going ‘Oh, no, we can’t run that because he might get hurt.'”