MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The revival of the Backyard Brawl on the gridiron is now in its third season. More than a dozen WVU players have played in both installments of the historic rivalry game since it was brought back in 2022.
Garrett Greene is among that group. He even started last year’s Brawl in Morgantown.
That said, West Virginia’s top quarterback has less playing experience in the rivalry than any of his teammates who have appeared in each game versus Pitt.
Greene’s introduction to the Backyard Brawl came in the form of one rush for five yards in the first half at Acrisure Stadium in 2022. West Virginia fumbled the football away to the Panthers on the ensuing play, and Greene didn’t log another statistic the rest of the day.
Flash forward to September 16, 2023. Greene was entrenched as the starting quarterback. However, he sustained a lower-body injury on a one-yard run to the right side at the start of WVU’s second possession. He managed to take one more snap before heading to the locker room where his second Backyard Brawl appearance ended prematurely.
He took just six offensive snaps in the West Virginia victory.
One year later, he prepares for his second start in the Brawl.
“Garrett’s excited about this opportunity,” Neal Brown said in this week’s episode of The Neal Brown Show. “He’s practiced really well. He’s prepared.”
Saturday won’t be Greene’s first appearance in a highly-anticipated rivalry game in his career or even this season. However, West Virginia is hopeful that Greene can stay healthy against the Panthers and find more success than he has had in past rivalry contests.
“The mental side of it, which we’ve already talked about, is he is in a much better place than he was two weeks ago going into this game, as far as handling his emotions,” Brown said. “We fully expect him to play well.”
Greene bounced back from a sub-par showing in the season-opener against Penn State with a much more efficient outing last Saturday. He completed 17 of his 23 passes (73.9%) for 236 yards and three touchdowns.
He enters the 107th Backyard Brawl just 42 rushing yards shy of 1,500 for his career. When Greene hits that mark, he will become just the fourth quarterback in WVU history to throw for at least 3,400 yards and rush for 1,500.
