Creating competition critical for West Virginia at QB
West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez wants competition at every position on the roster, which made the decision to target a transfer quarterback a necessity.
The Mountaineers were already set to return sophomore Scotty Fox, who started five games last season and threw for 1,276 yards and 7 touchdowns against 6 interceptions as a true freshman. He also rushed for 201 more yards and 3 scores.
Given that it would have been easy to say that Fox was a young option with upside and the Mountaineers could build around him moving forward. But that’s where that level of competition comes into play and made finding a talented challenger to Fox critical.
Yes, there was also Max Brown on the roster, who saw limited snaps, but redshirt sophomore transfer Michael Hawkins from Oklahoma emerged as the key option for the coaching staff under center. The coaches admittedly looked at a number of options but it was Hawkins who rose to the top of the list.
“That was a big target for us to find a guy in the portal that we thought could compete with Scotty and Max and the rest of them to be our quarterback,” Rodriguez said. “We’re hoping every position, not quarterback, that we have at least two guys that are good enough to win with.”
Hawkins, 6-foot-1, 206-pounds, spent two years with the Sooners, where he appeared in 9 games with 7 in his first season and 2 this past year with four starts. During that time, Hawkins rushed for 262 yards and 2 scores to go along with completing 91-147 passes for 950 yards with 7 touchdowns.
“We wanted somebody to come in and compete with Scotty, Max for the job and somebody that had the skill set we thought could be special and Mike has that,” Rodriguez said.
Rodrigues believes that both of the incumbent quarterbacks have taken a step since last season, but Hawkins also brings the traits that the Mountaineers want with his ability to throw and run, as well as his overall competitive nature.
“He’s a smart guy. It’s really important to him, he works hard,” Rodriguez said.
The Mountaineers also have a pair of young quarterbacks going through spring practice in Jyron Hughley and John Johnson and the head coach is excited about both but the goal is to emerge with several options that the program believes they can win with this year.
That’s especially important after last year, when injuries forced the Mountaineers to use all of their quarterbacks at different points of the season.
“If we can get three guys that we can win with at every position, we’ll be a whole lot deeper and can sustain any back luck or overcome bad luck,” Rodriguez said.
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