MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Jeff Mullen finally has a situation on his hands where he can develop a quarterback from start to finish and mold the young man into the type of signal caller that he feels best suits his offense. The problem is, he may have to go the entire spring without any of those future quarterbacks getting significant repetitions on the field.

The only two scholarship quarterbacks currently on the roster are Geno Smith and Coley White. Smith has an injury that will keep him limited in any and all drills, while White was not even supposed to be a quarterback coming into spring practice.

“We would have liked to have moved him this spring and Coley would have liked to because we’ve got two kids that are really good football players that we’ve got to look at and the only time we’re going to have to look at them is the fall,” says the WVU offensive coordinator.

So, after a couple years under center, White and the coaching staff have seen the writing on the wall and decided it is finally time to move the Daphne, Ala. native to a position where he can better contribute to the team rather than get pushed down to an irrelevant fourth quarterback behind two true freshman reserves.

The issue that rears its head now is that White, who will likely be spending his summer and fall running sweeps and bubble screens as a slot receiver, is going to be taking almost all the snaps with the starting offense. Any inside track that Geno Smith may have established for himself this past season for next year’s top job is slowly fading due to his injured foot.

“No inside track,” says Mullen. “It’s not competition, because he can’t compete. I’ve got one scholarship quarterback in the spring. [Smith] will physically be able to play next fall, but if you’re asking me what the competition is this spring, it’s Coley versus Coley. I think Coley’s going to win.”

And then what?

Mullen says his understanding of Smith’s healing process is that for the first two weeks of spring drills, he will hardly be able to participate at all. The next two weeks, he can “kind of move and throw, but he can’t run.” So for the entire spring he won’t be able to run, and for half of it he can’t even walk. The coaching staff’s thinking, therefore, is that perhaps he should not take any reps at all and just get ready for when he does return to full health.
 

“You’ve got to play to get better,” says Mullen. “So it’s going to absolutely set him back. It’s not different than when Jarrett was playing basketball and missed half of spring ball coming into that first year as a backup… You’ve got to have spring ball.”

See, White has become just as much a victim of Smith’s injury as Smith himself. They’re both being held back from developing in what they’ll be doing this fall. Mullen is the first to recognize that once his talented incoming quarterbacks, Barry Brunetti and Jeremy Johnson, get on campus; he’ll have a full-blown quarterback competition.

“We’ve entered a situation where now these guys coming in are my guys. Geno’s my guy, Barry’s my guy, Jeremy’s my guy, Coley’s my guy and there will never be a sense of ‘I’m the guy’ in our room,” he says. “I think that’s important because if you don’t show up and work at quarterback every day, you will never grow as a player.”

Once the season rolls around, the Mountaineers will not have open competition; the starter will be the starter unless his play on the field warrants a change. But from the last game of the previous season until the first game of the next, no starter is safe.

The question now is, who will take the second-team reps this spring?

“I think Lonnie Galloway would,” says Mullen, only half joking about his colleague’s strong arm. “I think he could still play too. I’ll go with L.G.”

I’m fairly certain he used up all of his eligibility at Western Carolina years ago, but he also just may be the best quarterback on the field for the 15 spring practices.

For now, unless Coley proves something he has yet to display in his first two seasons or a walk-on shows off a skill set no one knew he had, Mullen will have to evaluate talent at his position that is not yet on the field.

At the very least, it should make for an interesting training camp.