MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Are you looking for some good news today? Okay, we'll give you some: Mountaineer quarterback Will Grier is once again throwing a football without any restrictions.
 
When Grier broke the middle finger on his throwing hand last November, West Virginia's record was sitting at 7-3 with a strong possibility of improving to 8-3 with a home victory over Texas.
 
Grier had the Mountaineers at the Longhorn 1-yard-line poised to score the game's first touchdown when he tried to use his legs instead of his arm to get West Virginia into the end zone.
 
The result was an injury that was not only game-altering, but season-altering as well.
 
A Wildcat offense using tailbacks Kennedy McKoy and Justin Crawford was devised to get the Mountaineers through the Oklahoma game, but the offense struggled mightily to get first downs without Grier in the lineup. That led to a disappointing performance against Utah in the Zaxby's Heart of Dallas Bowl.
 
It was clear for all to see that the Mountaineer offense last year was a much different deal without Will Grier out there behind center.
 
But he's back, and that gives veteran coach Dana Holgorsen one of college football's biggest offensive weapons heading into the 2018 season.
 
"He played a little soft toss in the bowl game out there," Holgorsen noted Wednesday morning. "He took the month of January, and they started throwing with him."
 
The plan was gradually to build his arm strength back up to the point where it was during midseason. At the time, he ranked among the national leaders in just about every passing category and had the Mountaineer offense ranked among the best in the country in most team categories.
 
Holgorsen said a throwing program was devised for Will in much the same manner as a pitcher in baseball.
 
"Once he could grip a ball, he couldn't just go ahead and start ripping it," Holgorsen explained. "If you don't use these muscles up here (pointing to his shoulder) for about six months, then you need to be smart because if you get out there and start ripping it around without these muscles developing, then you can do some real long-term damage.
 
"So, they put him on a pitch count, which cranked up," Holgorsen added. "By the time we got here after recruiting in February, he's been 100 percent full go."
 
Holgorsen said his senior looks good physically and sounds good mentally.
 
"He's exactly what you want in a fifth-year senior," Holgorsen mentioned. "Things are slower to him, and he's out there coaching those other quarterbacks Jack Allison and Trey Lowe (III)."
 
This is an important spring for Allison to develop into a reliable backup behind Grier with Holgorsen announcing Wednesday that Chris Chugunov plans to graduate this year and move on. Allison, a Miami transfer, is the tallest quarterback on the team at 6-6 and throws the ball well from the pocket.
 
But he's not nearly as mobile as Grier or Lowe.
 
"(Allison) spins it around pretty good," Holgorsen said. "He is still young and hasn't played a lot. He did a good job on the scout team for us all year and he gives us another option at quarterback.
 
"I will say this; I figured out if you don't want short quarterbacks, don't recruit short quarterbacks. That's not to say I don't because I have had some great short quarterbacks that have been excellent, but those three look different than what we have had," Holgorsen said.
 
In Lowe, Holgorsen has a true freshman who graduated early from high school and has been in Morgantown for less than two months, so everything is new to him right now.
 
Not only is he trying to fit in and learn West Virginia's offense, but he is also a member of the WVU baseball team and has already made two trips south with them so far this spring.
 
Holgorsen said he is okay with Lowe doing this when he doesn't have anything football-related going on.
 
"He can go practice and play as much as he wants to, that's fine with me," Holgorsen said. "He's done it his whole life - he's been a multi-sport star; he's a coach's kid; he's smart and he has a great presence to him.
 
"He traveled to Myrtle Beach last weekend, and they played four games, I believe, and he didn't play so I think he's a developmental guy for them, too. The way that works, if we have practice this weekend, then he's probably going to be here practicing this weekend," Holgorsen explained. "If they are going to use him in a game, I may let him skip a practice in order to play in a game - and I've talked to (WVU baseball coach) Randy (Mazey) about this - but he's pretty important to what our future is here."
 
Offensive coordinator Jake Spavital said he threw Lowe into the fire during Tuesday's practice to see how he handled it. Spavital believes that's the best way to get him acclimated to what they're doing.
 
"There are a lot of things that quarterbacks have to go through," Spavital explained. "He's a very cerebral kid, and he can stand there and tell me what to do on every single play, but it's a lot different when you throw him out there into the fire and he's trying to operate with the 40-second clock. That's his learning curve of trying to speed it up and go as fast as possible and understand it."
 
Spavital said he can see both sides of Lowe wanting to continue to play the two sports he loves.
 
"The thing that is amazing with the kid is that he wants to do everything, and I've got to tell him he can't," Spavital said. "There was a time when he made the trip with the baseball team, and I told him not to even come in to the office. We're going to be meeting, but I told him he can catch up on things some other time. He came anyway, and he looked like he was running on empty so we sent him home. He's such an eager kid, and he always wants to be a part of it, and we'd like for him to have more time with us, but at the same time he'll catch up. As time goes on he's going to get more comfortable with things."
 
Having Grier back on the field and healthy means it isn't crucial right now for Lowe to be involved in everything that's going on over at the Puskar Center, but he does need to be involved enough to compete with Allison for the backup spot.
 
As we all know, football is not a very forgiving sport and the unthinkable sometimes happen.
 
Keeping Will Grier healthy for an entire season is West Virginia's top objective. But having a couple of backups capable of keeping things running smoothly is of equal importance, just in case the unthinkable happens - again.