Garrett Greene hopes for his legacy to live on for West Virginia football

West Virginia football fans have become quite accustomed to watching starting quarterback Garrett Greene closely over the past few years. But there are still things they miss.

Sure, they might see the big open-field runs that change the momentum of a game, or the touchdown passes that secure wins late in the game. They certainly see a gritty and determined football player. They've also seen the mistakes -- the interceptions at crucial junctures of games, the decision to lob a pass instead of run when there is nothing but green space in front of him, or the missed open receivers that could have made a big play. These are the things fan see they're often a bit louder about.

But what they don't see are the smaller moments, the moments out of the spotlight. Like Greene spending a bit of extra time of the field at Milan Puskar Stadium after a Senior Day win against UCF in his final home game in Morgantown. Or him signing autographs and chatting with fans outside the football building after 8 p.m. -- well over an hour after the UCF game had come to a close. Greene had helped win a football game and answered questions for the media, but he stuck around for the WVU fans. Those fans, and the program they root for, mean a lot to him.

"I do the ESPN interview right after the game, but I definitely tried to soak it in a little more than I usually do, which is probably something I should have done, you know, going back to my freshman year. That's the most special tradition in all of college sports," Greene told reporters after the win against UCF when asked about singing "Take Me Home, Country Roads" with the fans at Milan Puskar.

"[West Virginia football] means everything to me. They took a kid from Tallahassee, Florida, and really welcomed him with open arms ever since I got here...the fabric of the state kind of goes hand-in-hand with the fabric of my family. I think it was the best deicison I ever made," Greene added.

Greene has had a mixed bag of a career at WVU, with plenty of ups-and-downs along the way. He is 13-10 as a starter for the Mountaineers, and also picked up a big victory as a backup when we he was called upon to relieve JT Daniels against Oklahoma in 2022, when he would both rush and pass for over 100 yards and score three touchdowns.

He owns a 1-0 bowl record for WVU and should have a chance to make it 2-0 this season now that WVU is bowl eligible. Throughout his five-year career, during which he played at least once in every season, he is 340-of-622 passing for 4,777 yards, 33 touchdowns, and 16 interceptions and has carried the ball 335 times for 2,034 yards and 27 touchdowns.

Greene ranks 12th in program history in passing touchdowns, 8th for total touchdowns responsible for, 7th in program history in career total offensive yards, tied for 7th in rushing touchdowns, and 4th in quarterback rushing yards (just 6 yards away from third entering the Texas Tech game). And what stats don't show is his determination to give all the effort he has and then some for the program, and put his body on the line in doing so.

"That just goes back to how I was raised. My dad had a rule for injuries -- blood or bone. He's got to see one of them for me to be hurt," Greene said. "I think it just all goes back to how I was raised, and I can't say enough to really the whole Greene family for raising me like that. Really it's just second nature."

Greene certainly has left and impact and legacy at WVU with that mentality and playing style, and those that brought him into the program and developed him into the current player he is over the past few years hope that the fanbase gives Greene his flowers for everything he has done and accomplished.

"The kid's a winner," WVU Head Coach Neal Brown said after the UCF win. "He competes, and I'm really happy for him that he performed and won in his last game here. I think he deserves that. I hope our fans appreciate him -- he hasn't always played clean football, but he's laid it on the line for the Mountaineers every single time he has suited up."

Greene, meanwhile, just hopes the fanbase understands that regardless of the results when he was on the field -- the good and the bad -- he always gave the maximum effort and nothing less for the old-gold-and-blue, and that he wouldn't change his experience in Morgantown if he had the choice.

"I hope they saw a guy who gave everything for the state, gave everything for his teammates, for his coaches, for him family -- that's really it. It's been the honor of a lifetime to be able to represent this state, to be able to represent this wonderful university, so I wouldn't want it any other way."