Photo courtsy of BlueandGoldNews.com WVU quarterback Garrett Greene runs with the ball during a game earlier this season.

MORGANTOWN — I don’t care if you are in the FBC Mortgage Stadium in Orlando, Fla., at home, at a friend’s house in front of your television set or in a local pub at noon Saturday, you might be best served by transplanting your automobile’s seat belts to wherever you are sitting because you are going to need to strap in for the shootout that figures to await you when West Virginia meets Big 12 newcomer University of Central Florida.

Both enter the game that will be shown on FS1 at noon, looking to end losing streaks, UCF’s at four games and WVU’s at 2. For the year, WVU is 4-3, UCF 3-4.

But do not think that this doesn’t stack up as an exciting afternoon of explosive football, each team having two excruciatingly difficult losses to deal with in their last three games.

WVU, of course, suffered the heartbreaking Hail Mary loss at Houston before coming apart in a game it led in the fourth quarter before losing to Oklahoma State, while UCF has had to endure a one-point loss to Baylor after leading 28-7 at halftime and then dropping a 31-29 game to No. 6 Oklahoma.

Central Florida averages more than 33 points a game offensively while WVU, which got off to a slow start on offense, has put everything together on that side of the ball while averaging 36.5 points over the last two games.

With the Mountaineers defense being exposed over those same last two games, UCF is a major challenge and the Knights’ defense ranking 91st in the nation points toward the kind of game where you will leave your favorite drinking establishment very drunk if you decide to drink a shot on each score.

A shootout it figures to be, one in which the quarterbacks are front and — to make a play on a football term — behind center.

Both WVU’s Garrett Greene and John Rhys Plumlee are unorthodox in their approaches to the position, but at the end of the day, no one cares how you put up the points, just how many.

The truth is, Greene and Plumlee, a fifth-year senior transfer from Ole Miss, could be twins.

Greene is listed at 5-11, 198, and has a baseball background, his father having played in the major leagues and been a long-time coach. Plumlee is 6-0, 200, and also is a baseball player, although unlike Greene, not a “former” baseball player as he is a member of the UCF baseball team.

In fact, on the day of the UCF spring game, he played centerfield against Memphis, had two hits before leaving in the seventh inning to go quarterback the second half of that spring game, completing 10 of 17 passes for 236 yards.

Both are known as much, or more, for their running as their passing; Plumlee even having a 1,000-yard rushing season as an Ole Miss freshman.

Both were injured this year, Plumlee in the second game of the season and out for three games. He came back for the last two, but even against Oklahoma, he wasn’t fully himself.

But he’s the spark plug that makes them go.

“When he’s on the field, we’re a better team,” UCF coach Gus Malzahn said. “John Rhys is our leader and it’s just a different deal when we have him on the field.”

Brown, by the way, concurs completely with that assessment.

“I could tell at media days he’s the leader of their team,” Brown said. “Those guys feel confident with him out there, as they should.”

That is no different than WVU with Greene, who is the unquestioned leader of the offense as he runs and throws. The last two games his passing came along to the point that he has thrown for 640 yards and 4 touchdowns while leading WVU in rushing with 117 yards against Oklahoma State and adding 47 rushing yards and two carries for touchdowns against Houston.

“Garrett continues to play at a high level,” Brown said of his quarterback. “You can see his confidence grow.”

The biggest problem remains decision making with Greene, who still is not a highly experienced quarterback.

“He had three really costly plays … the double move where he threw an interception into Cover 2 when he should have hit (tight end) Kole Taylor or run it. That was a bad decision and he knows it,” Brown said. “He missed a touchdown when we tied it at 27 by kicking a field goal. We really had a touchdown play but he came off of it too early (and ran).”

But the most memorable — or forgettable, depending upon which side of the fence you were on — was the fourth-and-2 decision he made to keep the ball and run around the left side instead of using the option of handing it off tackle to the running back.

“He should have handed the ball on fourth and 2 there,” Brown said.

That play lost 6 yards.

But the scouting reports on the two quarterbacks have to be very similar, stressing how dangerous they are.

WVU defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley gave a look into how they see the UCF offense this week during his media session.

“Running quarterback and all the things that come with that. They can split the field in half; they can throw it over your head. They do a lot of things; dress things up; move things around. We have to be ready for it … we have to be ready for all of it.

“That’s one of the things about this offense, going all the way back to when he coached Auburn, he can play the whole field in any personnel, any formation.”

And Malzahn analyzes the WVU offense in a similar fashion.

“Offensively, they run the football. They’re No. 7 in the country in time of possession. They get off the field, are good on third down. They’re No 15 in the country in fewest penalties, so they are a disciplined team.”

Take away that Hail Mary and Greene’s fourth-down decision, and WVU might even be a ranked team but, instead, they figure to have a shootout in Ocala for their football lives.