MORGANTOWN — For Geno Smith, his first extended playing time in a Mountaineer uniform was pretty much a blur.

There he was, on the sideline preparing to take his place beside the coaches — and with his offensive brethren — as West Virginia was hosting Marshall in the Friends of Coal Bowl at Milan Puskar Stadium last year.

Or so he thought.

Just four plays into the game, starter Jarrett Brown, on a scramble, received a vicious hit from Marshall’s Ashton Hall and sustained a concussion.

That thrust Smith, a true freshman, right into the fire.

“It was a cold day, but it was early, the fourth play, so it wasn’t like he’d been sitting on the sidelines,” offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen recalled. “It came as a shock. A lot of kids might have got a little jumpy, but he’s a really smooth kid, doesn’t get shook, doesn’t get rattled and I think that’s a wonderful trait. That’s what I learned from that game last year.”

He’ll likely learn more Friday when the Mountaineers travel to Huntington to take on Marshall at Joan C. Edwards Stadium at 7 p.m. The game will be televised on ESPN.

Mullen’s words of wisdom were few as Smith prepared to trot onto the field against Marshall.

“Take care of the ball and let me know what you like, and let’s call this thing together,” Mullen said.

“I was pretty much prepared,” Smith said. “Coach Mullen always prepared me, just as he is preparing (backups) Jeremy (Johnson) and Barry (Brunetti) because at any given time you can go in.”

Rome wasn’t built overnight and Smith’s first extended action wasn’t without an initial struggle.

To the tune of 48 first-half yards — Brown only played four snaps — and a 7-3 deficit at the half.

Smith said the Mountaineers weren’t running a vanilla offense.

“Not at all,” Smith said. “We were trying to win. Coach called the plays we went over in practice. Credit goes to those (Marshall) guys. They were stopping them. We were trying our best but they were just doing a little bit better than we were. But we came out on top. But I don’t think it was anything where I had to get my feet wet.”

Slowly, the offense started moving.

He completed a big fourth-down pass to Jock Sanders and then, he got a first — a 33-yard touchdown toss to Alric Arnett that put WVU up 17-7.

The snap was low on the play and Smith picked the ball up at the 39. Without missing a beat, he hoisted a high arcing pass to the back of the end zone that Arnett grabbed as he was draped by a Marshall defender.

That gave Smith a full shot of confidence.

“It did,” he said. “It let me know I could make the throws and do some good things.”

He would later see extended action against Florida State in the Gator Bowl, going 8 of 15 for 92 yards in over a half of action in WVU’s 33-21 loss.

Smith got off to a fine start last week, completing 20 of 27 passing for 216 yards and two touchdowns. He was intercepted once.

“I think I did some good things and then I made some mistakes that I learned from,” said Smith, who was still upset about his interception Monday. “Basically, for me, it’s to get better week-to-week. The only difference is now I’m a starter and I’m probably a couple pounds heavier.”

He will be going against the guy who brought him to WVU, former assistant and recruiting coordinator Doc Holliday. Holliday couldn’t resist a little bit of good humor with that fact.

“I wish I didn’t recruit him now to be honest,” he said. “I thought that today and said I wish I had not have gotten him. He is a good player. He is mature and he makes good decisions. He will be a handful and he is a great kid.”

“With Doc getting me here, I can’t thank him enough for that,” Smith said. “But now he’s our opponent. He’s on the other side. Our job is to come out and execute and win for West Virginia. We’re not going to add any pressure that we don’t need.”

Smith said the players on both sides probably don’t consider it as big a rivalry as the fans.

“I think for the fans it’s probably more of a rivalry than it is for the players,” Smith said. “Our job, as players, is to go out and try to win. They want to win and we want to win. Every game is pretty much a rivalry because everybody wants to win every game.”

He was impressed with what he saw of Marshall so far on defense.

“They’re a pretty sound team,” Smith said. “They have some athletes and they are well coached. We just have to come out and execute against those guys.”

— E-mail: demorrison@register-herald.com