Photo by: WVU Athletic Communications
Offseason Work Has Put Doege and Mountaineer Offense in a Position for Success
August 18, 2021 05:33 PM | Football, Blog
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The first thing you immediately notice about Jarret Doege is the beard. If he wasn't busy throwing passes for the West Virginia Mountaineers, he could easily pass for the school's rifle-toting mascot.
The second thing you notice are Doege's passes – they're much crisper, more accurate and have considerably more velocity on them this fall.
Make no mistake, Jarret Doege is not going to blow you away with his arm strength. He doesn't possess a cannon like John Elway or Dan Marino, each of whom threw the ball so hard you could hear the seams whistling through the air.
That's not Doege.
He's always relied more on his timing and his accuracy to get the football where it needs to go. But so far through a week and half of fall training camp, Jarret appears to be putting a little more zip on his passes, and the football also seems to be traveling a little farther down the field on his deep throws.
"I don't know what he's been doing, but he really came out and kind of surprised me a little bit (with his velocity)," junior wide receiver Bryce Ford-Wheaton admitted earlier this week. "He's been making great throws, squeezing balls into tight windows and just really threading the needle, and downfield, he's really putting the ball where we can make plays."
Last year, Doege completed just three passes longer than 41 yards and two of those – a 70-yard touchdown to slot receiver Winston Wright Jr. against Oklahoma State and a 58-yarder to Ford-Wheaton against Kansas State – were actually pass completions near the line of scrimmage.
Coach Neal Brown said Tuesday afternoon that West Virginia's offense this year is going to run through senior running back Leddie Brown, but in order for Leddie to have the room he needs to do his thing, Doege, Ford-Wheaton, Wright Jr., Sam James, Sean Ryan, Isaiah Esdale, Sam Brown and promising true freshman Kaden Prather are going to have to stretch the field vertically.
Consequently, Doege worked hard this summer on that aspect of his game.
"I think it's just being in the weight room with coach Mike (Joseph) getting stronger in my legs, my core, and I've always been able to have a decent spiral on the ball," Doege said late last week.
Doege, who still weighs the same 205 pounds he weighed last year, has completely transformed his body by halving his body fat percentage to get into the best shape of his life. Some of that was to try and get a few more yards on his passes, and some of that was to try and improve his mobility in the pocket.
Doege will never be confused with Pat White, or even Skylar Howard for that matter, but he's got to be nimble enough in the pocket to keep from becoming a stationary target. That might mean taking one step to his right or one step to his left to avoid an oncoming rusher, or tucking it and getting whatever he can if all of his receivers are covered.
Turning a negative play into even a small plus could mean the difference between extending a drive or having to punt the football.
"I try not to force it," he explained. "I'm getting down after I get what I can. Maybe it's not 60 yards and a touchdown, but it might be a no gainer or 5 yards and that will work for me."
In 14 games over two seasons with West Virginia, Doege is completing a shade below 65% of his 494 pass attempts for 3,405 yards and 21 touchdowns. That equates to about 6.9 yards per attempt, which means most of his completed passes have been around the line of scrimmage.
Many of those short passes were likely out of necessity because of a young and inexperienced offensive line that was not really capable of protecting Doege long enough for him to get the football down the field.
This year, West Virginia is much more talented up front and is beginning to develop the offensive line depth the program really hasn't had since it joined the Big 12 a decade ago. Doege's hard work during the summer, plus improved offensive line play should equal a more lethal downfield passing attack in 2021.
That's what Mountaineer fans are eager to see this fall, and it's something West Virginia needs to do to force teams to defend the entire field.
"I'm feeling very confident in my ability to throw it down the field and in my receivers as well," Doege said. "It's really all of the hard work we've put in. We've put in a lot of hours just throwing and catching over the summer."
"Whether we wanted to or not, he would always drag us out there and say, 'Come on, run 10 routes for me' or something like that," Ford-Wheaton added. "They were doing their little quarterback school every day after workouts and you could be coming from a heavy squat or whatever and Doege doesn't care.
"He wanted you out there running routes so it was a lot of timing work, and I think we've got it down," Ford-Wheaton said. "We're really on the same page."
Wright Jr. is on that same page, as well.
"It's easier for him to throw the ball to us now," Wright Jr. admitted. "We've put a lot of time into it. After summer workouts, we'd just throw and get a lot of work in throwing so it's just rhythm now."
In reality, Doege getting to work with all of his receivers was not a luxury he was afforded last summer when workouts were interrupted because of the coronavirus. With no vaccine available, Neal Brown's solution to keep his players safe and healthy was to conduct split-squad workouts.That meant all of the guys weren't together at one time, and that was a pretty big obstacle for his young football program to overcome.
"I'm not sure what effect it had, but for sure it was so much different this summer because I got to throw to receivers whenever I wanted, and I got to throw to all of them," Doege said. "Last summer, I maybe got to throw to these two receivers one day and then a different two the next day. I never really could make that full connection with all of them and throw to all of them at the same time whenever I wanted."
But he was able to do that this summer, and Doege is hopeful the connection he developed with all of them will lead to more downfield connections for the Mountaineers this season.
The team was idle today for the first day of classes for the fall semester but practice will resume Thursday afternoon up at the Steve Antoline Family Practice Facility.
West Virginia is scheduled to have its second officiated scrimmage of fall camp on Friday evening under the lights at Milan Puskar Stadium. That scrimmage will be closed to the media and the general public.
Neal Brown said preseason camp will continue until Tuesday, Aug. 24 and then full prep work for the season opener against Maryland will begin on Wednesday, Aug. 25.
Other than Virginia Tech, tickets for West Virginia's other five remaining home games against Long Island, Texas Tech, Iowa State, Oklahoma State and Texas are on sale through the Mountaineer Ticket Office and can be purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com.
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