Opinion
Asti: Rich Rodriguez is Playing Chess, Not Checkers with WVU QB Position

Nothing else will matter if Rich Rodriguez doesn’t find his quarterback, the man who will lead his offense the same way WVU legends Rasheed Marshall and Pat White once did. And even though Nicco Marchiol decided to return to West Virginia and experience Rodriguez’s “Hard Edge” philosophy for himself, it’s clear the QB1 role isn’t going to be handed to anyone.
So what does WVU bringing in multiple veteran transfer quarterbacks mean and what should fans expect out of the quarterback competition that’s ahead in the spring?
Well, one particular move signals Rodriguez is playing chess, not checkers with his strategy for the quarterback position.
While Marchiol has shown promise and has won – he’s 4-0 as a starter in college – and some believe it’s now his turn, there are reasons to wonder if he’s the right guy to lead Rodriguez’s offense. Despite winning and even impressing at times during practices, Marchiol has mostly struggled in games.
He did play lights out at Arizona with the pressure of a homecoming environment, but he’s been otherwise inconsistent aside from that game. His last start in Cincinnati saw him only throw for 156 yards with one touchdown and one interception. He also only completed 46.2%ย of his passes for 58 yards after replacing Garrett Greene in the second half against Kansas State the week prior.

West Virginia’s Nicco Marchiol (8)
drops back to pass against Cincinnati on Saturday. (WVSN photo by Cody Nespor)
Dating back to 2023, Marchiol posted a quarterback rating of just 21.0 and only managed 60 passing yards in relief of Greene despite winning the last Backyard Brawl in Morgantown.
As a runner, and being a dual-threat is obviously a necessity in a Rodriguez-led offense, Marchiol has 285 yards on 84 carries for an average of 3.4 yards per touch in his three years as a Mountaineer. A good, but not great showing on the ground.

WVU QB Nicco Marchiol celebrates a huge play for the Mountaineers versus Pitt. (WVSN photo by Kelsie LeRose)
Former WVU head coach Neal Brown talked about Marchiol’s progression as a player following his big night in Arizona.
โHeโs so much better player than the last time he started a game. So last time he started a game was Texas Tech, and that was in September, I guess, a year ago. And heโs matured, heโs been patient, and heโs gotten better. And Iโve said that a lot, yโall heard me talk about that in the spring, and you heard me talk about it in fall camp, and then he showed that today.
โAnd he didnโt play very well in the second half of the Kansas State game, which was a tough setting for him, but I thought he really stepped up today when we needed him, and he played really well,โ Brown said during his postgame press conference at Arizona Stadium.
Sure, it’s possible Marchiol could keep improving and may even be put in a better position to succeed moving forward. However, it’s also very possible Rodriguez will fall in love with Texas A&M transfer Jaylen Henderson before Marchiol gets that chance.
Henderson (6-foot-3, 220 pounds), who committed to transfer to WVU on Jan. 4, screams a Rodriguez-type quarterback. He has the size, mobility, speed and arm strength to generate big plays, both on the ground and through the air.
With that said, he’s still an unknown. Henderson is coming off a lost season in 2024 and hasn’t appeared in a game at all since Dec. 27, 2023. His recent injury and lost year is part of what made him available to West Virginia in the first place.
When on the field, he’s shown flashes of being an elite athlete who can flourish if given an opportunity and if placed in the right situation. It’s possible Rodriguez’s system would be the opportunity and situation he needs to reach his potential.

Image credit to Texas A&M Athletics
A monkey wrench was thrown into the expected two-man battle on Jan. 13 when Max Brown joined the party by revealing his plans to become a Mountaineer as well. And in all honesty, while he’s intriguing in some ways, mostly because he was once recruited by Florida and worthy of the SEC, he’s just an insurance policy for the WVU staff.
Brown completed 43-of-93 pass attempts for 561 yards, three touchdowns and six interceptions in five games during the 2024 season. To be fair, he did deal with an injury to his throwing hand.
In all likelihood, Rodriguez wanted to bring a player like Brown aboard in case he loses a quarterback in the spring transfer portal. If Marchiol doesn’t win the starting job again, he could decide he has to transfer to get on the field before his eligibility runs out. He can’t just wait his turn forever.
And it’s tough to believe Henderson decided to transfer to WVU to sit on the bench. He can’t lose another season after missing all of 2024 and he has the talent to play somewhere if not West Virginia.
So if one decides to leave in the spring, Brown would be there as a serviceable backup option. My belief is now that Brown is around more as a replacement for Ryder Burton than to be West Virginia’s starting quarterback in 2025.
For a related story, Mike Asti and Cody Nespor discussed WVU’s new quarterback room on a recent episode of Mountaineer Report.