With one month until the 2025 season opens at Milan Puskar Stadium, WVU football held their first day of preseason practices on Wednesday. And one topic on everyone's mind as fall camp begins is just who exactly will be the starting signal caller for the Mountaineers come August 30.
WVU has returning redshirt junior Nicco Marchiol, who is 3-0 as a starter for the program and served as the backup for Garrett Greene the past two seasons, set to battle it out with incoming transfers Jaylen Henderson and Max Brown, true freshman Scotty Fox Jr., and underclassman Khalil Wilkins. WVU coach Rich Rodriguez is well aware he's going to face questions on the topic over the next few weeks, and welcomed them during his press availability following Wednesday's practice.
"I understand that, and I'm the same way – when I follow a team, I'm like, who's your quarterback," he said. "I don't mind being asked everyday, and I'm curious too, right?"
Rodriguez did assure that he has a plan in place to evaluate the position and determine who is ready for in-game action and who is not, saying that "there's a process of how we're doing it." However, he was vague with any more information on the evaluation methods beyond that.
WVU football is gearing up for an "interesting" quarterback battle. #HailWVhttps://t.co/pSNyfBmQYM
— #HailWV (@Hail_WV) July 9, 2025
Rodriguez also returned to a joke he first made in the spring, asking "when's kickoff" for the season opener against Robert Morris when discussing when he'll make the announcement who will will start in Week 1. He admitted that he doesn't have a set schedule for when he'll make the decision, though he also believes there will come a time during fall camp where he starts consistently sending one of his players out with the starting unit in practice.
"I don't have a timeline to sort it down, but at one point you have to have one guy come out with the first group, right," Rodriguez said.
But Rodriguez also doesn't seem opposed to the idea of playing multiple quarterbacks at some point, noting that "he's done that before." Overall, he seemed hopeful he'll have a few options at the position – depth is important, after all, especially at quarterback. And even if it seems unconventional, he seems serious when weighing the option of multiple quarterbacks seeing action if he feels they've demonstrated the ability to help the Mountaineers succeed.
"We've got five guys we're trying to get reps for, and all have them have got to get an opportunity to show they can be the guy. I'm hoping, and I know I've said this before, I'm hoping there's more than one. If I have three quarterbacks that are good enough to play, I'll play all three...it doesn't bother me to rotate quarterbacks if they're good enough to win. I tell all of our guys, not just our quarterbacks, prove you're good enough to win with and you'll play."