MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Where there is a Will there is a way. The Will is West Virginia junior quarterback Will Grier, of course, and the way he's running this Mountaineer offense it's going to be difficult for any team to slow them down, including Oklahoma.
 
Yesterday in a 56-20 victory over ECU, Grier led West Virginia into the end zone the first five times the Mountaineers had the football, and seven out of eight before halftime with the only failure being Mike Molina's missed 44-yard field goal try.
 
"At times, it was like we were playing with 10 people out there," ECU coach Scottie Montgomery said afterward.
 
Most of the marches were lengthy, if not time consuming. All eight touchdown drives under Grier's direction lasted less than 2:22 before he retired to the sidelines late in the third quarter.
 
"He started better," West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen noted. "Last week it took him a half to get going where this week it appeared he was very comfortable from snap one. I think that's going to continue to improve, the timing aspect of it."
 
Why East Carolina chose to defer and give Mr. Grier the football at the start of the game is a mystery only topped by their choice of playing their linebackers seven yards off the ball, no matter where the Pirates were on the field, including their own goal line!
 
"It was a little unusual," junior wide receiver David Sills V said of ECU's linebacker positioning. "Sometimes they were tight to the box, too, so we didn't know if the line was kind of counting them as a box player or not but I think we did a good job of figuring it out."
 
The Mountaineers' first drive demonstrates the great balance Jake Spavital is already achieving with his offense only two games into the season - five runs and four passes.
 
Tailback Justin Crawford began the march with a pair of runs; Grier mixed in a short pass to David Sills V and then backup running back Kennedy McKoy got loose for 20 yards to the ECU 35.
 
Following a Grier misfire, he found Sills again for 10 yards to the 25; McKoy was dropped for a yard loss following a quick snap and then Grier hit McKoy out in the flat for 21 yards to the five.
 
In came Crawford and over the goal line went the Mountaineers for their first touchdown.
 
The drive consumed 75 yards in just 2:22 - the most time West Virginia used for any of its scoring sorties on the afternoon.
 
The others happened in 2:13, 0:45, 1:59, 0:50, 0:51, 0:24 and 1:48.
 
Sunday Sound



"Their tempo bothered us a lot, but not as much as their quarterback (was) making unbelievable throws," Montgomery said. "If you go back and look at the tape, he was signaling all over the field - he was signaling both sides of the field so everything we did to try and get him off balance, he was quick enough and he did a good job of looking at the signal clock as we call it and getting a signal change and recalling it without having to go to the sideline.
 
"When you have that ability you can go quick and get to the line of scrimmage, and it gave us major problems in the first half, and even the second half," Montgomery added.
 
Last Sunday against Virginia Tech, Gary Jennings Jr. was Grier's primary aerial weapon by catching 13 passes for 189 yards and a touchdown. ECU, seeing this on film, chose to bracket Jennings and take their chances with West Virginia's other receivers.
 
Yesterday, it was Sills V, a former quarterback, who had the big day with seven catches for 153 yards and three touchdowns, including a 75-yarder right before the end of the first half that was purely the result of two intelligent football players making an on-field adjustment, and Spavital letting them do it.
 
ECU was using the overtop guy to help defend the bubble screens so Sills simply suggested that instead of blocking him, he would release down the field because of the way they were crashing down on the receiver behind the line of scrimmage.
 
Spavital gave them the green light to do it and Grier tossed the ball to a wide-open Sills with no one around him and he leisurely jogged into the end zone for a 75-yard score.
 
It was almost like taking candy from a baby.
 
"We were talking about it on the sideline how they were playing our screen game and I thought we could get an open shot if they both shot," Sills said. "They did and it came wide open and that was the result, so it was cool."
 
"It was kind of a sight-adjustment thing the way they were playing us and Sills saw it and got back to us on it," Grier chuckled.
 
"I guess he's seeing some good stuff," he added.
 
Grier's vision was not too bad, either. In just 2 ½ quarters of work, he completed 19-of-25 passes for 352 yards and five touchdowns. In two games so far this season, he's completing 64.1 percent of his pass attempts for 723 yards and eight touchdowns.
 
His passer rating is 173.25, which is off-the-charts good.
 
Jennings Jr. leads the team with 17 catches for 235 yards, followed by Sills V with 16 grabs for 247 yards and five touchdowns.
 
Ka'Raun White has caught eight passes for 123 yards as he continues to play catchup from last year's broken leg, while the return of Marcus Simms to the lineup gives the Mountaineers a downfield threat the offense really lacked in its 31-24 loss to Virginia Tech in the opener.
 
Simms demonstrated his blinding speed in the second quarter when Grier wound up and threw the ball as far as he could and Simms comfortably ran underneath it for a 52-yard touchdown.
 
Simms, by the way, gave the return game a big jolt of electricity by returning one punt 23 yards (Mountaineer punt returners had just 39 total yards for the entire season in 2016) and he also brought back a kickoff 32 yards.
 
"It's good to see Marcus out there and doing a few things because we need more guys to step up at receiver and play," Holgorsen said.
 
"It's hard to overthrow him," Grier added. "He's got incredible speed."
 
McKoy is also a weapon in the passing game and true freshman wide receiver Reggie Roberson Jr. is coming along as well.
 
Meanwhile, Crawford has quietly put up two 100-yard games so far, and broke free for a 42-yard touchdown run in the second quarter of yesterday's game. He is averaging 8.8 yards per carry.
 
McKoy, too, has run the ball effectively with 104 yards and a 5.5 yards-per-carry average, while No. 3 runner Martell Pettaway and No. 4 Tevin Bush have also gotten some important carries as well.
 
"As much as we've been running the ball the last couple of years, we're still going to run the ball," Holgorsen noted. "They stacked the box and we could've thrown the ball every down and the outcome could have been the same."
 
Having the ability to do both is going to bode well for the Mountaineers as they get deeper into the season.
 
Unlike Holgorsen's early days at West Virginia when the offense was pass heavy, or more recently when an emphasis on developing the run game led to more runs than passes, this is the first time the Mountaineers have truly been balanced in his seven seasons here.
 
The evidence is in the overall statistics.
 
West Virginia has run the ball 82 times for 437 yards and an average of 5.3 yards per rush, and they have thrown the ball 88 times for 774 yards and an average of 8.8 yards per completion.
 
Indeed, this is probably the most balanced Holgorsen's offense has been since the one year he spent at Oklahoma State in 2010 prior to coming to WVU. Incidentally, that was the last time Holgorsen, Spavital and veteran offensive line coach Joe Wickline were all together.
 
Last Sunday against Virginia Tech, the Mountaineers were forced to throw the ball more often because of the way the Hokies were defending them. The result was 592 total yards and one incomplete pass away from sending the game into overtime.
 
Yesterday, the Mountaineers did as they pleased. If the box looked light they ran the ball - or threw it. And when it was stacked they still ran the ball - or threw it.
 
Call it Will Power.