MORGANTOWN — No. 47 drops back to pass for BYU? No. 47? It must be a trick play where the running back is in the backfield on a wildcat, like the Derrick Henry touchdown pass in the AFC Championship game for the Tennessee Titans a couple of years ago. Nope. That’s BYU’s quarterback.

The quarterback usually wears a number from 1-19. West Virginia’s quarterback Nicco Marchiol wears No. 8, and Jaylen Henderson wears No. 13. Not BYU’s true freshman quarterback Bear Bachmeier. He wears No. 47.

Bachmeier grew up playing running back, so he always wore a running back number. Bachmeier eventually became a quarterback and cooked, still wearing the No. 47. He ranked as the 34th quarterback in the 2025 class, even catching the eye of former Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton.

A quarterback with No. 47 could be confusing, and I’m sure there’ll be a lot of WVU fans turning on the game late Friday night, confused, too. WVU’s defense has to be prepared.

WVU defensive coordinator Zac Alley’s not a stranger to the Bachmeier family. He coached at Boise State when Bear’s older brother Hank was there. Then, Hank transferred to Louisiana Tech, and Alley saw him again when he was at Jacksonville State.

“I think he was the running back growing up with the kids,” Alley said. “That was always his number, and so he just stuck with it. I think it’s kind of cool, man. He’s really a tough downhill runner. He doesn’t put the ball in jeopardy. A really polished freshman. I can see that mentality, same thing in kind of their family that Hank had. You can tell that Bear’s got it. He runs hard. He’s tough. ”

Bachmeier had a successful start to the season as a true freshman. Like Alley said, Bachmeier doesn’t put the ball in harm’s way and hasn’t thrown an interception yet this season on 90 passes. He’s a pretty accurate passer with an almost 70% completion percentage and has thrown for six touchdowns. Bachmeier is also a volatile rusher with four touchdowns, too.

The Big 12 is a league with elite quarterbacks, and Bachmeier is definitely looking like he’ll be the next one.

Alley’s defense has struggled the past couple of weeks with what he’s called “eye candy,” meaning the defense falls a lot for deception. For example, Utah’s quarterback Devon Dampier would look like he’s scrambling, the defender would bite, and then Dampier would dump it over their head to the guy they were supposed to be covering.

Alley puts every player in a position to be successful, so when they vacate that spot, it’s frustrating. There were too many WVU players with their eyes on the backfield.

“I can’t look at the quarterback,” Alley said. “He’s not going to throw the ball to me, he’s going to throw it to him. That’s pretty much the extent of it. It’s just eyes. If you’re not looking at the right things, you’re not going to go the right place.”

Eyes are Alley’s point of emphasis for the BYU week, that and fixing the missed tackles, but primarily avoiding deception. There’s not much more deceiving than a quarterback wearing No. 47.

Alley’s come up with some creative ways to emulate a quarterback on the scout team to prepare. For Ohio’s dual-threat quarterback, he used running quarterbacks Scottie Fox and Khalil Wilkins to run around, so the defenders could chase and know what it feels like.

So, will the scout quarterbacks be wearing No. 47 or an irregular number this week in practice?

“I thought about it,” Alley said. “I think we’ll know who the quarterback is this week.”