The West Virginia Mountaineers will be traveling to Provo for a Friday night matchup with the undefeated Cougars of BYU. Kickoff is set for 10:30PM ET, and the Mountaineers will be looking to bounce back from back-to-back embarrassing performances to begin Big 12 play. The road ahead does not get any easier as the Cougars are ranked #23 in the AP Poll and pose a rather strong home-field advantage. There is one storyline that stands above the rest ahead of kickoff in Provo.
Who will start at Quarterback for the Mountaineers?
The ever-evolving quarterback situation for West Virginia may be taking on yet another form on the road in Provo. With Nicco Marchiol being ruled out for “several weeks” due to a lingering foot injury, there’s a potential for four different Mountaineers quarterbacks to see action against BYU. Here’s the story with each of these four, heading into game day.
Jaylen Henderson
Henderson started the Mountaineers' most recent game in the blowout loss at home to Utah. Both he and the WVU offense as a whole failed to accomplish much. Henderson completed just 3 of his passes and managed to pick up only 28 yards on 13 rushes. Henderson had seen very brief action in each of the Mountaineers’ first four games. He managed to pick up 79 yards rushing in the blowout loss to Kansas.
Khalil Wilkins
Prior to Saturday’s game against Utah, Wilkins had seen the field sparingly and had yet to attempt a pass. Although it was in a blowout loss, Wilkins managed to find Cam Vaughn for a 39-yard touchdown pass, while picking up 39 rushing yards as well.
Scotty Fox Jr.
For a very brief window against Pitt, freshman QB Scotty Fox looked like he may be the starter moving forward. After engineering a scoring drive in the Backyard Brawl, Fox threw two interceptions before being benched, and we haven’t seen much of him since.
Max Brown
Brown may be the quarterback in the room that Mountaineer fans are the least familiar with. Due to being a little banged up in the early part of the season, the junior quarterback did not see any game action until late in the loss to Utah, when he had 2 carries for 19 yards in garbage time. Regarded as possibly the best athlete in the quarterback room, Brown began his career at Florida before transferring to Charlotte for a 2024 season that was cut short due to injury.
Who’s it going to be?
While the need that this offense possesses is significantly deeper than a quarterback change, with Marchiol being ruled out, someone’s going to be inserted into the QB1 spot on Friday night. While at this point, there is a high possibility that multiple quarterbacks see the field, who gets the start remains to be seen.
Based on what we saw against Utah, it is likely to be Jaylen Henderson or Khalil Wilkins getting the nod. Let’s make the case for both.
Jaylen Henderson is a veteran who may be more comfortable playing a night game on the road in a raucous environment. While he hasn’t played particularly well in his brief time on the field, he hasn’t gotten much of an in-game opportunity to make his case for the starting role, aside from the matchup with Utah, which was ugly from the beginning. While he was unable to get it going on the ground in that game, he does lead the Mountaineers in rushing yards due to an injury-riddled running back room. If the offensive line could improve in the slightest, Henderson may be able to show how effective with his legs in this offense.
The case for redshirt freshman Khalil Wilkins is rooted in the unknown. While the ceiling of Jaylen Henderson is more well-known at this point in his career, just how good of a collegiate player Wilkins will be remains to be seen. The logic here might be found in giving the freshman a shot because could the offense look much worse with him at the helm? Both Marchiol and Henderson have struggled immensely due in part to the offensive line struggles and injuries at the offensive skill positions. To give Wilkins a start on the road in Provo is to make a decision for the long-term future as well. If there’s a chance that Wilkins competes for the starting job at WVU in 2026, why not let him showcase what he brings to the table now?