Mountaineers Ready to Unleash Star Freshmen Rodney Gallagher, Jahiem White

The Mountaineers are ready to unleash their star freshman. West Virginia head coach alluded to Rodney Gallagher and Jahiem White earning playing time against Penn State to start the season, but they weren’t afforded the chance to make an impact on the game. But Brown is now again saying he’s ready to pull the trigger.

Brown clarified that White was too banged up to play and offered an explanation for why Gallagher didn’t see any offensive snaps until garbage time. “He played on special teams. Tried to get him the ball on the last play of the game,” Brown said about Gallagher. “If you look at the game, we didn’t play a ton of 11 personnel. We didn’t play a ton of 11 personnel and that was game plan specific.”

And so there’s no confusion, Brown again goes into another game saying Gallagher will be involved in the game plan, granted executing that will likely be much easier against FCS Duquesne than it was while the Mountaineers tried to battle Penn State.

“He’ll play more moving forward, he’s going to play,” said Brown. “Retrospect maybe should’ve used him a little bit more in that game. Preston (Fox) played primarily those snaps at that slot receiver. Rodney will play. He’ll play this week and if he produces he’ll play more as the year goes.”

WVU offensive coordinate echoed Brown’s sentiment about needing to use Gallagher. “Rodney Gallagher’s another player as well that we need to be able to get the ball to,” Scott said.

Since Brown initially said White would be on the field after being showered with praise from multiple West Virginia coaches, it was later revealed White was not deemed ready to go from a health standpoint. That was then and this is now. What is ready to go, according to Brown on Monday.

Click here to read about the increased expectations for both Gallagher and White from fall camp.