MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- For four years, he mostly stood and observed on game days, a sideline spectator. For four years, he mostly watched the same quarterback start, and star, ahead of him.

As Mountaineers coach Bill Stewart posed it, "How would you like to back up the Big East [offensive] player of the year the past two years?" Back up a program legend about to own every vital West Virginia statistic for a quarterback, including career victories (28) and bowl record (3-0 thus far)? Back up a two-time Heisman Trophy candidate about to break the NCAA mark for quarterback career rushing?

Talk about patience in the pocket: For four years, Jarrett Brown never flinched.

Now, alongside Pat White, he might get to flourish.

"When you see No. 16 [Brown] and No. 5 [White] in the game, it scares me," guard Greg Isdaner said, "what could happen to the defense."

"I love my new role," Brown added last night. "It's exciting to see the defense not knowing what to do. They just sit there on the ball hike, waiting to see what to do."

Mountaineers offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen created what he calls "the Jarrett Brown package" to try to get this redshirt junior onto the field more often, including Saturday when West Virginia (2-2) plays host to Rutgers (1-3).

Placing him in the same backfield with White, in what Mullen calls "the two-tandem deal," raises concerns for opposing defenses. Although a sort of reverse triple hand-off from Brown to White to Jock Sanders failed Saturday in a 27-3 defeat of Marshall, possibilities abound.

More conservatively, Brown ran the same sort of quarterback draws and options as White.

He ran on three third-and-short plays for 25 total yards, which showed that maybe the Mountaineers don't need to rip a redshirt off one of their freshman backs; as Mullen said, "We realized we needed a bigger back, and Jarrett Brown's a 220-pound back."

The last time he played running back or caught a pass in a game was elementary school -- when he wore No. 22 for idol Emmitt Smith -- but Brown rushed for 78 yards and completed 5 of 7 passes for 44 yards against Marshall.

Subbing at quarterback for White and his bruised thumb, which Stewart expects will be fit to play against Rutgers, Brown also directed two drives to field goals. He threw an interception, on a long pass into the end zone, though rustiness showed in his flat-footed delivery and across-the-field attempt.

It's a start. More precisely, it's a beginning for a career backup -- 1-0 as a starter for a hurt White against Rutgers in 2006 -- who's still waiting to start 2009 sans No. 5.

"We felt Week 4 was the appropriate time," Mullen explained of delivering the Brown Package. With Brown playing for Bob Huggins' basketball team and missing a healthy portion of winter conditioning, he didn't show up fully for football until spring drills had already begun.

"We needed to spend some time the first part of [fall] camp to make sure he understood quarterback. Then we could move him around a little bit. Can't have him learning too much stuff and forget about being The Q."

"Anything they want me to do," Brown added. "If they tell me to run, I run. If they tell me to throw, I throw. Oh, yeah, I can catch. Playing catch with Pat every day, basically that's like a Juggs [machine]."

In his career, Brown has 65 completions in 103 attempts for 766 yards and four touchdowns. He also has 598 yards rushing, 6.6 per carry, and six touchdowns. Friends and family back home in West Palm Beach, Fla., used to beg him to transfer -- "I heard it all; I heard it from everybody." Still, he stayed.

"I just wanted to focus on myself and be as good a teammate, as good a player as I could be. Being in the backup role, the odds are against you 'cause you're not getting the direct teaching, there's a lot of things you have to do on your own.

"But I think this experience has been great. Being a backup, I couldn't be treated better."