Photo by BlueGoldNews.com Nicco Marchiol completed 17 of 20 passes for 223 yards and one score in WVU’s season-opening win over Robert Morris.

MORGANTOWN — As difficult as it is to say, Nicco Marchiol’s debut as West Virginia’s starting quarterback was both spectacular and paradoxical at the same time.

While it is true that it is difficult to ask for improvement upon 17 completions in 20 attempts without an interception, the 85% completion record producing 223 yards and a touchdown, there are those who would prefer to take a wait and see approach because the opponent was an overmatched FBS opponent in Robert Morris.

Was that, they asked, a product of his skill or the lack thereof by the opposition?

So, let us take a deeper dive into what coach Rich Rodriguez categorized more as a “comfortable” than spectacular performance for Marchiol.

First off, for those who are taking a “let’s see him do it again” approach, let us point out that in reality, Marchiol was doing it again.

Last season, in an Oct. 26 start against Big 12 opponent Arizona, Marchiol put up very similar statistics with 18 completions in 22 attempts, which is an 81.8% completion rate, with 198 yards, 0 interceptions and two touchdowns while rushing 11 times for 39 yards, quite similar to his 13 for 56 yards performance against the Colonials.

“He’s got a strong enough arm. You saw it on the deep ball (a 46-yard touchdown to wide receiver Cam Vaughn, who was hit right in stride),” Rodriguez said when asked on Tuesday to assess Marchiol’s performance in a bigger window than just versus Robert Morris. “He made a beautiful throw on the deep ball.

“His strength is that he’s an accurate thrower. I think one of the best attributes you can have as a quarterback is accuracy. And he’s an accurate guy.”

While Skyler Howard, who started ahead of him the past couple of years under Neal Brown, was a more spectacular player with both legs and arm that could produce big plays, his greatest defect was in accuracy, especially on the short possession passes that Marchiol connected on over and over.

Rodriguez, you see, cherishes that. His game is ball control in a high tempo offense that wears a defense down.

In those two starts — Arizona last year and Robert Morris this year — Marchiol completed 35 of 42 passes, 83.3% without an interception.

It was Marchiol who took the game by the throat. Now it’s true that WVU produced only 10 first half points against Robert Morris, but no performance points can be deducted from the left-handed junior for it was his offensive skill players who managed to lose three fumbles, which a rankled Rodriguez pointed out cost three possessions.

Perhaps it would be helpful to look at how Marchiol’s performance in the opener compared to the other quarterbacks in the Big 12, a conference that believes it has the best quarterback play in the nation and who played a variety of opponents.

Rocco Becht, the son of former WVU All-American tight end Anthony Becht, won co-Big 12 Player of the Week honors with an equally eye-popping 19-of-20 showing for 278 yards and three TDs without an interception against South Dakota.

His co-Player of the Week was Utah quarterback Devon Dampier, who completed 84% of 25 passes (21) for 206 yards and two scores in a victory over UCLA, a far more prestigious opponent. He also rushed for 87 yards and a score.

For the most part, Marchiol was taking what was given to him, but it wasn’t simply little drop-off passes. He was third in the conference in most yards per completion with 10.6, behind UCF’s Tayven Jackson (11.8) and Texas Tech’s Behren Morton (10.9).

Becht was fifth in the league with 9.6 yards per completion and Dampier was eighth at 8.1 yards.

Rodriguez likes to use the same kind of RPO (run-pass option) plays that Patrick White perfected. While White’s skill as a runner exceeds Marchiol (to say nothing of nearly every other quarterback who has played the game), it appeared that Marchiol is more comfortable throwing the ball.

“Some of his throws in the last game were off run plays, RPOs, and he could’ve thrown more of them. In the second half, we kind of shut a lot of those down. We were just going to hand the ball off, so to speak,” Rodriguez noted. “But he’s really comfortable in the RPO world. He’s comfortable in the route packages that we have. He’s a very accurate guy.”

What came through with Marchiol was how important his game experience was, Brown having used him as a starter three times when Skylar Howard was injured and having won all three.

“Nicco’s got some game experience. He’s relaxed out there seeing the field,” Rodriguez said. “There’s always one or two things that we want to take back, but he was in control of running the system and did a nice job. Made a couple key first down runs.”

But what this game did for Rodriguez, while perhaps cementing Marchiol into the No. 1 quarterback role, was to wet his appetite to see more of those behind him like Jaylen Henderson, Scotty Fox and Khalil Wilkins.

“The other guys all had explosive runs,” Rodriguez notes, Henderson running twice for 18 and 22 yards, Fox making his freshman debut and bursting 59 yards for his first Mountaineer touchdown and Wilkins running for 22 and 9 yards on his two carries.

“I wanted to play them more,” Rodriguez said. “That was the disappointing part about having those turnovers. Not putting the game away in the first half, I was hoping to have the whole second half to play those other guys and get some play in our system, but they all went in there and did some decent stuff.”

And so, while Marchiol’s performance may have ended the controversy, the performance of the others opened the door for Rodriguez to expand the quarterback’s role in his offense and feel freedom to play the backups when needed and maybe even devise plays where two of the quarterbacks are in the offense at the same time.