Kendall’s Addition Fills Big Roster Void for WVU
January 19, 2019 01:18 PM | Football
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – And now there are three.
The biggest void confronting Neal Brown when he inherited the West Virginia program from Dana Holgorsen two weeks ago was a lack of scholarship quarterbacks on the roster.
With the departure of senior Will Grier, Brown was staring at just two scholarship quarterbacks to work with – Miami transfer Jack Allison, who completed just 51.1 percent of his pass attempts for 352 yards and a touchdown last year, and true freshman Trey Lowe III.
For a program that has been blessed with outstanding quarterback play dating back to the early 2000s with Rasheed Marshall, the lack of scholarship QBs in the program is head scratching.
It may not have been A, B or C on athletic director Shane Lyons' list of priorities when he targeted Brown as his guy for the WVU job, but you can bet getting a coach in here as quickly as possible to address West Virginia's precarious quarterback depth was in the back of his mind.
"It was being the right fit here, knowing he can coach football and the roster will take care of itself," Lyons explained to me two weeks ago. "He will find the right guys for the right spot."
Well, earlier this week Brown helped the quarterback room considerably when he convinced Oklahoma's Austin Kendall to enroll in school.
Kendall was able to earn his degree in three years at Oklahoma, meaning he will have two seasons of eligibility remaining with the Mountaineers. And of equal importance, he will be able to compete with Allison and Lowe for the starting job when spring football practice begins later this semester.
We got a little bit of a better idea what Allison can do now based on his performance against Syracuse in the Camping World Bowl, but Lowe is still somewhat of a mystery. He took just a handful of snaps in the bowl game and has yet to attempt a pass down field in a college game.
As for Kendall, he's also somewhat of an unknown commodity.
He saw only limited action in three seasons at Oklahoma because the two guys above him on the depth chart were both Heisman Trophy winners – Baker Mayfield last year and Kyler Murray this season. Kendall appeared in six career games for the Sooners, completing 28-of-39 passes for 265 yards and four touchdowns after starring in high school for coach David Johnson at Cuthbertson High in Waxhaw, North Carolina.
During his senior season at Cuthbertson in 2015, Kendall hit on 64 percent of his pass attempts for 2,627 yards and 23 touchdowns while running for 268 yards and adding six more scores. The four-star prospect also had offers from Auburn, Clemson, Miami, NC State, Tennessee and West Virginia before choosing Oklahoma out of high school.
There were only three prostyle quarterbacks rated above Kendall on the Rivals250 quarterbacks list that year - Washington's Jacob Eason, Stanford's K.J. Costello and Florida's Feleipe Franks.
Just below Kendall was Ohio State's Dwayne Haskins and on down the list was Allison, so it appears Kendall brings solid credentials with him to Morgantown. He also becomes the latest in a growing list of four-year quarterback transfers at West Virginia.
Holgorsen hit the transfer market heavily once Geno Smith left the program in 2012 by bringing in Florida State's Clint Trickett, Riverside City College's Skyler Howard, Florida's Will Grier and then Allison.
His decision to hop on the transfer tiger instead of developing high school quarterbacks is how West Virginia to where it's at when Brown took over.
On the day Brown was officially introduced to West Virginia fans, he spoke of the need of getting another quarterback into the program as quickly as possible.
"We need to get some help in that area," he said.
By adding four-year transfer Kendall, it's clear Brown will pursue all avenues to build his roster.
"I think you always have to be open-minded when you go about building your roster and you have to be creative," he said. "I'm not big on making the rules and I really don't have an opinion about the rules. I want to know what the rules are and let's go play by them. You need to evaluate the grad transfer market. We've got a lot of recruiting ties in some really good junior college areas in Mississippi and Kansas."
Brown said he also looks forward to recruiting the Northeast junior colleges as well.
"The Northeast junior colleges above us have gotten very competitive and they've had some really good players here," he said. "The thing that we're going to do a little bit different here from a junior college standpoint is we're going to recruit those players for a year-plus, almost like you would go about recruiting a high school student-athlete."
Fortunately for Brown, he's not in a situation where he has to pursue just transfers. He indicated the Mountaineers have enough returning players to work with this spring when he begins putting in his system.
It's by no means dire.
"This is a team that won eight football games last year. Obviously, they lost a lot on the offensive side with some key personnel so the learning process for me is you don't need to be stubborn, we need to accept the players that are here, make sure they're welcome and put them into positions to be successful," he explained.
Having another scholarship quarterback in the mix will help the process, that's for sure.
The biggest void confronting Neal Brown when he inherited the West Virginia program from Dana Holgorsen two weeks ago was a lack of scholarship quarterbacks on the roster.
With the departure of senior Will Grier, Brown was staring at just two scholarship quarterbacks to work with – Miami transfer Jack Allison, who completed just 51.1 percent of his pass attempts for 352 yards and a touchdown last year, and true freshman Trey Lowe III.
For a program that has been blessed with outstanding quarterback play dating back to the early 2000s with Rasheed Marshall, the lack of scholarship QBs in the program is head scratching.
It may not have been A, B or C on athletic director Shane Lyons' list of priorities when he targeted Brown as his guy for the WVU job, but you can bet getting a coach in here as quickly as possible to address West Virginia's precarious quarterback depth was in the back of his mind.
"It was being the right fit here, knowing he can coach football and the roster will take care of itself," Lyons explained to me two weeks ago. "He will find the right guys for the right spot."
Well, earlier this week Brown helped the quarterback room considerably when he convinced Oklahoma's Austin Kendall to enroll in school.
Kendall was able to earn his degree in three years at Oklahoma, meaning he will have two seasons of eligibility remaining with the Mountaineers. And of equal importance, he will be able to compete with Allison and Lowe for the starting job when spring football practice begins later this semester.
We got a little bit of a better idea what Allison can do now based on his performance against Syracuse in the Camping World Bowl, but Lowe is still somewhat of a mystery. He took just a handful of snaps in the bowl game and has yet to attempt a pass down field in a college game.
As for Kendall, he's also somewhat of an unknown commodity.
He saw only limited action in three seasons at Oklahoma because the two guys above him on the depth chart were both Heisman Trophy winners – Baker Mayfield last year and Kyler Murray this season. Kendall appeared in six career games for the Sooners, completing 28-of-39 passes for 265 yards and four touchdowns after starring in high school for coach David Johnson at Cuthbertson High in Waxhaw, North Carolina.
During his senior season at Cuthbertson in 2015, Kendall hit on 64 percent of his pass attempts for 2,627 yards and 23 touchdowns while running for 268 yards and adding six more scores. The four-star prospect also had offers from Auburn, Clemson, Miami, NC State, Tennessee and West Virginia before choosing Oklahoma out of high school.
There were only three prostyle quarterbacks rated above Kendall on the Rivals250 quarterbacks list that year - Washington's Jacob Eason, Stanford's K.J. Costello and Florida's Feleipe Franks.
Just below Kendall was Ohio State's Dwayne Haskins and on down the list was Allison, so it appears Kendall brings solid credentials with him to Morgantown. He also becomes the latest in a growing list of four-year quarterback transfers at West Virginia.
Holgorsen hit the transfer market heavily once Geno Smith left the program in 2012 by bringing in Florida State's Clint Trickett, Riverside City College's Skyler Howard, Florida's Will Grier and then Allison.
His decision to hop on the transfer tiger instead of developing high school quarterbacks is how West Virginia to where it's at when Brown took over.
On the day Brown was officially introduced to West Virginia fans, he spoke of the need of getting another quarterback into the program as quickly as possible.
"We need to get some help in that area," he said.
By adding four-year transfer Kendall, it's clear Brown will pursue all avenues to build his roster."I think you always have to be open-minded when you go about building your roster and you have to be creative," he said. "I'm not big on making the rules and I really don't have an opinion about the rules. I want to know what the rules are and let's go play by them. You need to evaluate the grad transfer market. We've got a lot of recruiting ties in some really good junior college areas in Mississippi and Kansas."
Brown said he also looks forward to recruiting the Northeast junior colleges as well.
"The Northeast junior colleges above us have gotten very competitive and they've had some really good players here," he said. "The thing that we're going to do a little bit different here from a junior college standpoint is we're going to recruit those players for a year-plus, almost like you would go about recruiting a high school student-athlete."
Fortunately for Brown, he's not in a situation where he has to pursue just transfers. He indicated the Mountaineers have enough returning players to work with this spring when he begins putting in his system.
It's by no means dire.
"This is a team that won eight football games last year. Obviously, they lost a lot on the offensive side with some key personnel so the learning process for me is you don't need to be stubborn, we need to accept the players that are here, make sure they're welcome and put them into positions to be successful," he explained.
Having another scholarship quarterback in the mix will help the process, that's for sure.
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