WVU Football QB Nicco Marchiol Perseveres Despite Messy Performance In Backyard Brawl

WVU football redshirt junior Nicco Marchiol is one tough young man. Not necessarily just physically tough, but mentally tough.

Marchiol got the start again in Week 3 for the Mountaineers during The Backyard Brawl, as he did in the previous two matchups – he entered the game 4-1 in his career as a starter for the Mountaineers. But after a first-half performance that left a bit to be desired, Marchiol found himself on the bench to start the third quarter. He was replaced by Scotty Fox Jr. – who was then replaced by Jaylen Henderson.

But at the end of the night, Marchiol was brought back out onto the field and led the Mountaineers back from a ten-point deficit to score 17 unanswered and to earn himself his second win in The Backyard Brawl, which included him linking up with tight end Grayson Barnes to score the game-tying touchdown with just moments remaining in the game.

“We rotated guys just like we do in practice, so there’s not really – sometime you’re just trying to get a spark, sometimes there’s certain plays you want to run…at the end we knew we needed to throw more, and Nicco is our best thrower, most accurate, most comfortable thrower,” Rodriguez said.

“And he was really, really sharp when he had to be in the last four minutes. And that’s what I’m proud of – instead of hanging his head and saying ‘oh geez, I’m not in all the time,’ he showed he’s a competitor, and he pulled us out a victory.”

After the game, Marchiol took time to reflect on getting benched and then making a comeback for the second consecutive week, noting that he had been talked to earlier in the week about other quarterbacks potentially getting opportunities to play and that as a backup before this season, he’s used to not really knowing when he might enter or exit a game. However, he was able to keep his mind focused and his morale high when the move was made, that type of attitude played a massive role in him being able to come back out late and lead a come-from-behind win.

“When my number was called again, there was just one goal in mind – it's just go and win the football game, some way, somehow,” Marchiol said. “The minute you get distracted and you start feeling sorry for yourself and start feeling bad for yourself, that’s when you got no chance. I knew my time was going to come again.”

Marchiol’s performance was for from perfect – despite going 19-for-25 through the air for 192 yards and one touchdown, he was graded out at 62.6 by the team at Pro Football Focus (PFF). That number definitely leaves a ton of room for improvement, but his passing grade was far ahead of his rushing grade – he earned a 74.4 grade for his passing performance and just a 42.8 grade for his work in the run game. Marchiol finished the game with a dismal -4 rushing yards on 10 carries, which included two sacks and eight scrambles or designed runs.

A deeper glance at the numbers immediately shows a couple of areas of Marchiol’s game where he needs to make some large strides soon – on passes of 20-or-more yards, he went 0-for-3 and received a PFF grade of just 44.8. And when it comes to pressure-to-sack ratio, or how often a quarterback gets sacked while under pressure, Marchiol is the fifth-worst FBS quarterback nationally with more than 25 snaps this season (out of 67 players that qualify), and is the worst overall among Power 4 quarterbacks. Marchiol has seen 85 drop backs this season, was pressured on 31 of those, and has been sacked nine out of those 31 times he’s been pressured – that works out a pressure-to-sack ratio of 29%.

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