MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Jarret Doege's mind is on one thing as West Virginia continues preparations for its Dec. 28 Guaranteed Rate Bowl game against Minnesota at Chase Field in Phoenix – defeating the Golden Gophers.
 
He's not concerned about what happens after the 2021 season, nor what happened during last year's Liberty Bowl when he was pulled in the third quarter in favor of backup Austin Kendall, who led WVU to a 24-21 comeback victory.
 
That was Doege's first-ever bowl start.
 
"I think I put that one behind me a long time ago," Doege said late last week. "I'm going to go into this game and prepare like I usually prepare and go in there with a great mindset to try and win this football game."
 
His coach, Neal Brown, pointed out circumstances are somewhat different for Doege compared to last December when WVU's regular season was shortened one game because of COVID 19.
 
That meant the team was basically shut down for a good portion of the time before its Dec. 31 game against Army in Memphis, Tennessee.
 
"Our season was so odd last year at the end," Brown explained. "We played one game over a six-week period and pass game is such a rhythm deal. We were out of the facility for about 10 days."
 
Offensive coordinator Gerad Parker usually chooses the glass-is-half-full approach with his players.
 
"We don't discuss it at all," Parker said. "You've got to learn by it, but you want to use things that are positive most of the time to motivate, and I think our body of work over the last six games, finishing 4-2 and winning these last two, are things we want to emphasize. I always equate it to basketball. There is a whole lot more to learn from making a shot than missing it."
 
Doege has had some outstanding performances this season. He completed 21-of-28 passes for 257 yards in the TCU win, had his WVU-best 370 yards and three touchdown passes in the Mountaineers' 38-31 upset victory over Iowa State and a 290-yard, three-touchdown effort in a 31-23 home win over Texas.
 
His three-year WVU passing totals of 6,313 yards and 40 touchdowns place him in the school's top 10 in each of those categories.
 
Adding in his two-season passing totals at Bowling Green, Doege has now thrown for 10,354 yards and 79 touchdowns in 45 career college games, which is not too far away from the cutoff for the top 30 all-time passers in NCAA history.
 
UTEP's Trevor Vittatoe currently sits at the No. 30 spot with 12,439 career passing yards.
 
During his time at West Virginia, Doege has made a habit of bouncing back from adversity, sometimes of his own doing. This year's Iowa State game immediately comes to mind when he threw a pick six that put the Cyclones back into the game.
 
On the next offensive series, he stepped up and completed a difficult third-down pass to Winston Wright Jr. and capped the drive with a perfectly placed ball to Bryce Ford-Wheaton in the back of the end zone for a touchdown.
 
His game against the 21^st-ranked Cyclones is probably the signature performance of his WVU career so far. Doege also recalled erasing a subpar game he had against TCU in 2020.
 
"I threw three interceptions versus TCU and then in 2020, I wiped that out and we beat them and I had a pretty good game," he said. "I think I go into this game not thinking about last year's game, but thinking about my job and what I need to do to win this football game."
 
Having Army flashbacks is probably not going to serve him well facing a Minnesota defense that has not allowed a 300-yard total offensive performance since the middle of October and is permitting 284.8 yards per game.
 
The 8-4 Golden Gophers are giving up just 184.7 yards per game through the air. Doege said Minnesota's defense is not incredibly complicated, but they are really good at what they do.
 
"They don't do a whole lot, which makes them good at what they do," he explained. "They play a lot of basic coverages, and they're really good at it.
 
"Coach Brown mentioned Baylor (as a team of comparison), and Baylor really didn't do a whole lot either," Doege added. "They just had some good players, and they are good at what they do."
 
Doege has an additional season of college eligibility remaining because of the COVID year, but he said he is not thinking about that right now, only this year's Guaranteed Rate Bowl.
 
"I haven't really got to the decision yet," he said. "We'll see what happens after that when I talk to coach Brown. I didn't want to make this whole thing about me; I want to make it about winning the bowl game."
 
Following last Saturday's practice, the team was excused for three days for Christmas recess before resuming bowl prep Wednesday afternoon. Thursday-Friday practices are scheduled before the team departs for Phoenix on Christmas morning.
 
Final on-site preparations will take place on Sunday and Monday prior to Tuesday's game.
 
This will be West Virginia's first-ever meeting against the Golden Gophers.