Asti: Garrett Greene Hasn’t Looked Better, Still Has Plenty to Prove

After an offseason full of a polarizing debate among fans and media, Garrett Greene hasn’t come close to living up to any kind of hype. In fact, he’s making those who argued he should be a dark horse Heisman candidate look foolish.

Putting aside a solid showing and a 49-14 win over FCS Albany, Greene’s completion percentage has been right around 53%, exactly where it was in 2023. This comes after Brown and quarterbacks coach Tyler Allen made it clear Greene needs to be closer to 60% in order for him and the team to get to another level.

Greene started the season completing just 53.6% against Penn State, spiked to 73.9% in the lone win over Albany and then dipped right back to his usual spot at 53.3% in the Backyard Brawl in Pittsburgh. Making matters worse, Eli Holstein, Greene’s younger and less experienced counterpart at Pitt finished at exactly 70% for the Panthers.

While completion percentage can be a misleading statistic at times, it was a talking point brought up by the coaches and Greene himself (he set a goal for himself to finish at 65%), making it valid to track all season.

And not only has his accuracy not increased when facing Power Four opponents, Greene has already thrown half as many interceptions (2) through three games this year as he did all of last season (4).

“Heisman darkhorse” Garrett Greene’s last 3 throws of the Backyard Brawl. pic.twitter.com/8J0wnbiHDx

— The Loyal Sons (@TheLoyalSons) September 16, 2024

Greene did look better and more composed (up until the last two possessions of the game) against Pitt compared to Penn State, granted that’s not saying all that much. But at the same time, he’s still either overthrowing or missing open receivers at times.

For the simplest analysis, it appears as if Greene is sticking to the initial play call no matter what happens far too often. He’s just not going through his reads and seeing the entire field as well as he should be at this point in his career. He missed Kole Taylor open underneath a couple times on plays that he was fixated on going deep.

WVU quarterback Garrett Greene and WR coach Bilal Marshall talking during the 2024 Backyard Brawl against Pitt. (WVSN photo by Kelsie LeRose)

With all of that said, WVU did put up 34 points against Pitt and the offense has been productive overall since their abysmal showing in the season opener.

In all honesty, the offense is not why West Virginia lost to Pitt, and that’s the loss that’s causing fans to lose more than anything. Greene was far from perfect, but the offense did hang right with Holstein and the Panthers. A special teams blunder that led to the seven points off a punt block and then a leaky defense, especially against the pass, allowed Pitt to win despite trailing by 10 points with under five minutes left in the game.

Even though it’s tough for anyone to be optimistic right now, there’s still a long season left and the new College Football Playoff rules make it so every team has a chance until conference play begins.

However, WVU still has several quality opponents left on the schedule and Greene will have to be much closer to matching his 2024 hype in order for the Mountaineers to be the contender they believed they could be.

“Stick with us. We still got 9 conference games to get to Dallas,” said Greene when asked why fans should trust this team can turn their season around.

For a related story, WV Sports Now’s Mike Asti offered his takeaways from WVU’s loss to Pitt in the 2024 Backyard Brawl.

Takeaways: Brawl Proves 2024 Mountaineers Not Worthy of Hype