Takeaways From Gold-Blue Game

Saturday’s official scrimmage for the West Virginia Mountaineers featured lots of new players and new faces along with the hope of an improved team in the third year for the Mountaineers’ head coach Neal Brown, who recently signed an extension.

• Teased earlier in the week by the head coach that the game would feature a QB Competition and a special guest would join the team, fans were surprised by none other than current basketball star Miles “Deuce” McBride, a former high school quarterback (which has been mentioned none other than 1 million times in basketball broadcasts). Fans got to see why that tidbit was brought up so many times as Miles showed off his arm and nearly won the individual competition.
• Garret Greene, the tantalizing freshman who saw very limited action in 2020, again showed off his wheels and why fans are clamoring for him to play more in 2021. Greene hit Kaden-Prather on a beautiful 51-yard throw and finished the day with 103 yards.
• Redshirt senior quarterback Jarret Doege did show improvement and made a great throw to Winston Wright Jr on a 21-yard catch. Doege continued to show the accuracy and touch on the intermediate passes. He would finish with -5 yards rushing, but found the endzone on a scramble. Coaches have pressed him and worked to improve his pocket awareness.
• Winston Wright appears to be separating himself as the go-to guy for the Mountaineers. Wright continues to flash the speed fans know he has. Kaden Prather finished with 62 yards and Sam Brown, who dazzled early last year, went 69 yards on 2 catches and a touchdown.
• A’Varius Sparrow was the day’s leading rusher and should be the first man to spell Leddie Brown. Sparrow finished the day with 50 yards and a touchdown.
• The game would technically end in a tie at 38-38 and was decided by a lineman challenge when Noah Drummond was defended by Brayden Dudley one on one in a tiebreaker challenge. If Drummond made a catch, gold would win. if Brayden could defend the pass, blue would win. Ultimately, Dudley showed off his defensive back skills and broke up the short pass to give blue the win 39-38.