Photo courtesy of BlueGoldNews.com WVU quarterbacks Garrett Greene, left, and Nicco Marchiol talk during a recent practice session. Greene and Marchiol are battling for the starting spot for the Mountaineers, who will host the spring game on Saturday.

MORGANTOWN — With one practice left before West Virginia’s annual spring game at 1 p.m. on Saturday, the seemingly smooth sailing the Mountaineers dueling quarterbacks have had in their competition was hit by a tidal wave of problems.

“Up until today there was promise and they were getting better each and every day, both of them,” quarterback coach Sean Reagan told the gathered media in the Milan Puskar Center team room.

“Each of them had improved on something they wanted to improve on, competed at a high level,” Reagan went on, referring to Garrett Greene and Nicco Marchiol. “Then today happened.”

You’re dealing with two young, inexperienced quarterbacks, so this is not unexpected. Spring is where you want this to happen, to reach a plateau, especially near the end where you lose maybe your edge over the weekend as all the juices dry up briefly.

But from the way Reagan spoke, it wasn’t a pretty sight to see from either.

“It was probably our worst day at quarterback today,” he admitted.

It later would come out that there were four interceptions and defensive safety coach Dontae Wright would also point out that three others were dropped.

Seven interceptions possible could be a universal record in practices in the spring.

Only kidding, but you have the idea if they were giving out medals for participating in practice, they would have skipped over Greene and Marchiol.

“It was a little bit of everything today,” Reagan said. “We were inaccurate with the ball. They probably want to blame it on the wind, but sobeit, the wind blows in the mountains, too.”

This is not something they are panicking over because it was an abnormal practice session for them over the spring.

“They’ve come a long way,” he said. “They were at about 70% completion and were at the high 80s or low 90s in decision making in our run reads on RPOs. Decision-wise, their eyes were just not focused in the right place.

“We focused all spring on our eyes needing to be where they are supposed to be and they’ve done a real good job of that the two weeks. They just weren’t ready to go today. That’s the bottom line.”

Those numbers will come down after the day they just experienced but Reagan doesn’t expect it to repeat itself.

“They’ll be ready to go Thursday,” Reagan said. “I love that room. They usually bounce back pretty strong, so I would expect to come out lights out on Thursday.”

Reagan has focused on different areas where they need to improve the most over the spring.

“With Nicco, we really worked hard on footwork and eye placement, where they really need to be on RPO, the run read or even in the pass game,” Reagan explained. “Before today he was night and day from Day 1 to Day 12. He was just off.

“With Garrett, it’s more pocket presence and understanding we can get to our second and third read before we get to it,” Reagan continued. “He’s done a very good job of that for the most part. We’re still trying to hone in on slowing eyes down and he’s really improved on that and his RPO reads from the last time I coached him.”

You might recall Reagan was the quarterback coach under Neal Brown before last year when he was moved to tight ends when Graham Harrell was hired as QB coach and offensive coordinator, neither of which worked out very well.

Harrell is now at Purdue.

Reagan believes that quarterback coaching is where he belongs.

“It’s been great,” Reagan said of the move back in the quarterback room. “There’s a new fire. I’m excited every day to go in that room and coach those guys. I love that position. I grew up playing it and I’ve coached 24 years and I’ve coached quarterbacks around 20 to 21 of those years.

“That’s where I’m comfortable, where I feel the best at,” he said.

Over that time he has learned that you don’t just coach technique. Quarterbacks are leaders and that has to be developed as well.

The onus, however, isn’t only on him in the quarterback room.

“That’s more from a team guided standpoint,” he said. “Coach Brown does a good job during the off-season having a leadership program, a leadership class all the guys go through. We have captains. There’s 12 or 14 of them who coach Brown meets with every week or every other week, building through this.

“But, with a quarterback at this level, you either got it or you don’t. By the time they are here they have a piece of that, and we just try to pull it out of them a little bit more.”

How will a decision on a quarterback be reached?

“If they keep battling the way they do now it will be a tough decision,” Reagan said. “It’s going to go down to who is the most detailed most of the time. That’s footwork, eye discipline, decision making, that’ if and when we put our checks in, are we checking to the right thing.

“If I had to sum it up in one word, it would be details.”