Saturday, September 16
Morgantown, W.Va.
12:00 p.m.
West Virginia University
vs
Delaware State
Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
WVU's Spavital Covets High IQ Players
September 13, 2017 02:15 PM | Football
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - I'm not familiar with all of General Robert Neyland's Football Maxims, but we do have a couple of Tennessee graduates working in the athletic department who can recite them like bible verses.
Yet rather than take the time to hunt them down for the complete listing, I'm going to wing it a little bit.
I do know that No. 1 on the Generalissimo's football list is "The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win." And I know this one as well, "Play for and make the breaks and when one comes our way - SCORE."
For long suffering Mountaineer football fans who lived through West Virginia's losing streak to Penn State, spanning the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations, those two maxims certainly rang true.
So, in the interest of time, I'm going to skip through the others and add one of my own - "When all things are equal, smart ALWAYS beats stupid."
Think about all of the dumb things you see happening on a football field during the course of a four-quarter college football game these days - or a four-quarter professional football game if you happen to follow the Pittsburgh Steelers or the Cincinnati Bengals.
Penalties, mistakes, mental errors, players lined up in the wrong place, odd play calls, bad officiating, etc., etc., etc. Monday morning office productivity in North America usually grinds to a halt because of this.
But there are some really smart guys out there playing at colleges and universities throughout the country, too, and West Virginia University has a couple of them in junior wide receiver David Sills V and junior quarterback Will Grier.
West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen has always coveted coaches' kids for his football team and he passed that trait down to offensive coordinator Jake Spavital, a third-generation football junkie.
During his weekly Tuesday afternoon news conference prior to Saturday's game against Delaware State at Milan Puskar Stadium, Holgorsen made a passing reference to Sills understanding football "as good as anybody" he's ever had as a player.
Sills' dad, David Sills No. 4, was once a college cornerback at VMI and a young David Sills No. 5 used to devour football video with his father the way we consumed Scooby Doo and Hong Kong Phooey as kids.
"I talked football with my dad a lot and my quarterback coach while growing up," Sills admitted the other day. "They both love the game as much as I do. My dad, he's very smart and we would always sit down and break down film and pick plays that we could run against other teams. I think that's a big thing that helped me have a student-of-the-game mentality."
Grier, too, possesses great football genes (his father Chad was a former college player at East Carolina and called the plays for him at Davidson Day High) and his gridiron IQ is off the charts, says Spavital.
"High IQ," he said. "You can put a lot on Will. He has a great understanding and he can communicate it clearly, which can get difficult at times for new quarterbacks - especially in new systems.
"But I think over the past years at Florida and dealing with an NFL playbook with a lot of words and a lot of communication, I think you can throw anything at him and he can handle it."
East Carolina coach Scottie Montgomery, after watching Grier carve his defense up for 2 ½ quarters in a 56-point blitzkrieg, made some very interesting postgame comments regarding Grier's football savvy.
"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 going to the sideline."
That's not something a normal college quarterback, playing his second game in a new offense, can accomplish very easily.
Nor is having a wide receiver, once a former quarterback, come running off the field pointing out spot-on sight adjustments to make in the screen game to take advantage of the other team's over-aggressiveness.
But that's what Sills did on the 75-yard touchdown pass near the end of the first half when he was standing by himself 25 yards down the field and all he had to do was catch Grier's pass and jog in a straight line toward the goal line.
"You can give credit to Sills for that one," Grier said after the game, rolling his eyes.
"(Sills) has a good understanding of what the defense is trying to do to him," Spavital said. "He asks great questions when he comes off to the sidelines on how they're playing everything: how they are playing the quick screens on the perimeter; how they're playing the vertical routes or the inside release techniques."
One of the beauties of Spavital's system is the great value he places in the input he receives from his players.
Spavital was once a coach's son so he knows how valuable player knowledge is to the overall success of the team. He used to sit in the car and talk football strategy with his father, who just happened to be his high school principal as well.
"He was pretty hard on me, now," Spavital recalled. "Things that he was really hard on were body language, attitude and being a team player - the things that typical coaches want to see in their players."
Momma Spavital knows her football, too, but she drew the line when they wanted to talk football at the dinner table.
"Besides that, it was about every other opportunity we could we talked football," Spavital said.
It's the same for two of his best football pupils, Grier and Sills. These guys are capable of sitting around and talking about the passing game the way Oppenheimer and Teller used to talk about the A-bomb.
Spavital is one of the first coaches in the Puskar Center in the morning watching tape, well before the sun rises. And the first player in the building sitting right next to him is usually Grier, followed by Sills.
"Whenever I have free time, I always go into Coach Spav's office and he's usually watching film with Will in his little chair and Coach Spav will say to me if we get this look this might be a good play call," Sills said.
For Sills, it's just like old times with his dad. After all, it's not easy talking pass protections and read progressions with Billy during fourth period study hall. Back in the day when we were in study hall, we were trying to figure out how we could wipe our boogers into the other kids' notebooks without getting caught.
Not these guys.
"I love coaches' kids, I do," Spavital said. "I just think they have a great understanding and they're great team players as well."
However, Spavital does take into consideration a lot of the suggestions he receives, based on who's suggesting them.
"Now there are some guys who believe they are open on every single play and you've got to put that into perspective, but guys like David Sills, I listen to him when he has any ideas or any questions on the sidelines," he said.
Having knowledgeable players out there running around is invaluable to a football team.
Come to think of it, you can probably add another maxim to General Neyland's list, "Always listen to your players, especially the smart ones!"
Just ask East Carolina.
Yet rather than take the time to hunt them down for the complete listing, I'm going to wing it a little bit.
I do know that No. 1 on the Generalissimo's football list is "The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win." And I know this one as well, "Play for and make the breaks and when one comes our way - SCORE."
For long suffering Mountaineer football fans who lived through West Virginia's losing streak to Penn State, spanning the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations, those two maxims certainly rang true.
So, in the interest of time, I'm going to skip through the others and add one of my own - "When all things are equal, smart ALWAYS beats stupid."
Think about all of the dumb things you see happening on a football field during the course of a four-quarter college football game these days - or a four-quarter professional football game if you happen to follow the Pittsburgh Steelers or the Cincinnati Bengals.
Penalties, mistakes, mental errors, players lined up in the wrong place, odd play calls, bad officiating, etc., etc., etc. Monday morning office productivity in North America usually grinds to a halt because of this.
But there are some really smart guys out there playing at colleges and universities throughout the country, too, and West Virginia University has a couple of them in junior wide receiver David Sills V and junior quarterback Will Grier.
West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen has always coveted coaches' kids for his football team and he passed that trait down to offensive coordinator Jake Spavital, a third-generation football junkie.
During his weekly Tuesday afternoon news conference prior to Saturday's game against Delaware State at Milan Puskar Stadium, Holgorsen made a passing reference to Sills understanding football "as good as anybody" he's ever had as a player.
Sills' dad, David Sills No. 4, was once a college cornerback at VMI and a young David Sills No. 5 used to devour football video with his father the way we consumed Scooby Doo and Hong Kong Phooey as kids.
"I talked football with my dad a lot and my quarterback coach while growing up," Sills admitted the other day. "They both love the game as much as I do. My dad, he's very smart and we would always sit down and break down film and pick plays that we could run against other teams. I think that's a big thing that helped me have a student-of-the-game mentality."
Grier, too, possesses great football genes (his father Chad was a former college player at East Carolina and called the plays for him at Davidson Day High) and his gridiron IQ is off the charts, says Spavital.
"High IQ," he said. "You can put a lot on Will. He has a great understanding and he can communicate it clearly, which can get difficult at times for new quarterbacks - especially in new systems.
"But I think over the past years at Florida and dealing with an NFL playbook with a lot of words and a lot of communication, I think you can throw anything at him and he can handle it."
East Carolina coach Scottie Montgomery, after watching Grier carve his defense up for 2 ½ quarters in a 56-point blitzkrieg, made some very interesting postgame comments regarding Grier's football savvy.
"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 going to the sideline."
That's not something a normal college quarterback, playing his second game in a new offense, can accomplish very easily.
Nor is having a wide receiver, once a former quarterback, come running off the field pointing out spot-on sight adjustments to make in the screen game to take advantage of the other team's over-aggressiveness.
But that's what Sills did on the 75-yard touchdown pass near the end of the first half when he was standing by himself 25 yards down the field and all he had to do was catch Grier's pass and jog in a straight line toward the goal line.
"You can give credit to Sills for that one," Grier said after the game, rolling his eyes.
"(Sills) has a good understanding of what the defense is trying to do to him," Spavital said. "He asks great questions when he comes off to the sidelines on how they're playing everything: how they are playing the quick screens on the perimeter; how they're playing the vertical routes or the inside release techniques."
One of the beauties of Spavital's system is the great value he places in the input he receives from his players.
Spavital was once a coach's son so he knows how valuable player knowledge is to the overall success of the team. He used to sit in the car and talk football strategy with his father, who just happened to be his high school principal as well.
"He was pretty hard on me, now," Spavital recalled. "Things that he was really hard on were body language, attitude and being a team player - the things that typical coaches want to see in their players."
Momma Spavital knows her football, too, but she drew the line when they wanted to talk football at the dinner table.
"Besides that, it was about every other opportunity we could we talked football," Spavital said.
It's the same for two of his best football pupils, Grier and Sills. These guys are capable of sitting around and talking about the passing game the way Oppenheimer and Teller used to talk about the A-bomb.
Spavital is one of the first coaches in the Puskar Center in the morning watching tape, well before the sun rises. And the first player in the building sitting right next to him is usually Grier, followed by Sills.
"Whenever I have free time, I always go into Coach Spav's office and he's usually watching film with Will in his little chair and Coach Spav will say to me if we get this look this might be a good play call," Sills said.
For Sills, it's just like old times with his dad. After all, it's not easy talking pass protections and read progressions with Billy during fourth period study hall. Back in the day when we were in study hall, we were trying to figure out how we could wipe our boogers into the other kids' notebooks without getting caught.
Not these guys.
"I love coaches' kids, I do," Spavital said. "I just think they have a great understanding and they're great team players as well."
However, Spavital does take into consideration a lot of the suggestions he receives, based on who's suggesting them.
"Now there are some guys who believe they are open on every single play and you've got to put that into perspective, but guys like David Sills, I listen to him when he has any ideas or any questions on the sidelines," he said.
Having knowledgeable players out there running around is invaluable to a football team.
Come to think of it, you can probably add another maxim to General Neyland's list, "Always listen to your players, especially the smart ones!"
Just ask East Carolina.
Players Mentioned
QB
/ Football
WR
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Coach Ryan Garrett | April 6
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Coach Rich Rodriguez | April 6
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Geimere Latimer | April 2
Thursday, April 02
