Greene was solid, but it wasn’t enough
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MORGANTOWN -- It was Monday, just two days after Garrett Greene had come off the bench to lead West Virginia to its first Big 12 victory over Oklahoma, when coach Neal Brown told his back up quarterback that he would be starting against Kansas State in the next game.
It was a hush-hush type of thing, Brown not wanting to tip K-State if it would be Greene or J.T. Daniels, who had struggled for a month, who would start.
This is the kind of thing coaches like to do, play these kinds of games, but almost always in the end it's the team that plays the most physical, most mistake-free football who wins no matter how secretive the coach may be.
Take the day WVU decided to use its All-American slot receiver Tavon Austin at running back against Oklahoma. Austin broke the school rushing record and all-purpose yardage record with a better than 300-yard rushing performance.
But Oklahoma won the game.
It was no different here, as Greene had a solid performance, completing 15 of 27 passes for 204 yards and three touchdowns -- all to Sam James -- and rushing 12 times for a net 17 yards and another touchdown, but Kansas State scored early and often itself and wound up on top, 48-31, before a disappointing crowd of 37,055.
The loss assured WVU its third losing season in three years under Brown and will keep them from reaching a bowl game, doing nothing to help Brown's job security, either.
One can only imagine the state of mind Greene was in entering his first collegiate start on Senior Day, taking the field already down 7-0 in what would become a 28-point first quarter onslaught by the K-State Wildcats.
It certainly didn't improve after Cincere Mason ended Greene's first possession by intercepting and running 37 yards for a touchdown.
"They were in a two-man coverage. I just tried to put it in a window that wasn't there," Greene said of the interception. "But the guys rallied around me and scored on our next possession. I was pretty nervous going in but after that first pick I seemed to do pretty well."
He did add a certain fire that had been extinguished in the Mountaineer offense in mid-season as injuries mounted to running backs CJ Donaldson and Tony Mathis, tight end Mike O'Laughlin and guard James Gmiter, but the scoring interception and one later in the game changed the flow of any comeback dreams WVU had.
"I can't make those mistakes at critical times against a team as good as Kansas State and expect to win," Greene said.
"I thought Garrett did some good things. He ran around and made some good decisions, made some bad decisions. That's gonna happen when you're in your first career start. He'll continue to get better," Brown said.
"I thought the two interceptions were costly. They turned into 14 points -- one of them immediately, the other one (eventually)," Brown said.
There also was a moment early in the second half when WVU was trying to get back into the game and went off on a 16-play drive that used up 8:55 of the clock but ended up with no points when Greene found himself in the midst of a brief scuffle.
It had been a strange drive, with WVU being called for five penalties, four of them pre-snap penalties, with Greene getting them out of big holes.
Then, as they got down in the red zone, Greene was calling signals and got the snap just after the play clock had run down, but it was so close that the play went on. Greene tried to make the throw but was hit by Felix Anudke-Uzomah.
Tempers flared; flags flew. The officials had blown the whistle for delay of game but then Anudke-Uzomah was hit with a roughing the passer call.
"I thought I got the ball off. The clock was running down, but I thought I got it off. But then I heard the whistle and the guy came in and took a shot at me," Brown said. "After the game he apologized and said he didn't hear the whistle."
There was brief scrum, WVU wound up with a first down at the K-State 14 but could not punch it in, the long drive going for naught when Brown was taken down on a third-down sack and then a field goal was missed.
And so it went, penalties, missed kicks, inconsistency on offense, all of it against a really strong K-State team that Brown believes will face TCU in the Big 12 championship game.
"We didn't play well enough in the first half. Then, in the second half, I thought we came out and really fought, especially there at the end of the game," Brown said. "We just struggled getting to the passer. If you'd told me we were going to win the rushing battle, we were going to score 25 points in the first half and (Kansas State junior running back) Deuce Vaughn was going to be held to 67 yards rushing, I'd sit down and feel really good about our chance to win the game."