Radio sideline reporter Jed Drenning provides periodic commentary on the Mountaineer football program for WVUsports.com. Be sure to follow him on Twitter @TheSignalCaller.
 
It's a classic slice of Americana.
 
A father in Anytown U.S.A. pulls in from a long day at work. His son rushes out to the driveway. The kid might be 3 years old, or maybe 4. He's excited to see his dad because, as always, he's ready to play ball. The specifics of what kind might as well be an afterthought. Anything that involves throwing, catching or jumping always hits the spot. 
 
The cheap, plastic mitt on the boy's left hand clearly tells dad that on thisday he better have his pitching arm loosened up. And before you know it, pop is tossing ground balls. As the boy fields each and throws them back with an uncanny dexterity beyond his years, dad's offerings gradually pick up more steam. Soon, the grounders are coming in hot and wide. But the boy is a competitor and won't let a single ball slip by – even if that means leaving some skin on the ground. 
 
Remember … he's 3. Or did I say 4? Either way, he's little more than a 12-episode run of "Blue's Clues" removed from his toddler days. Toddlers, it's worth noting, are so-called because they tend "to toddle" or walk unsteadily – not lunge for hot ground balls like infield drills in the Grapefruit League. 
 
One grounder with a little extra pepper on it threatens to skid past the little guy, but he dives with an outstretched glove to make the stop. Maybe he didn't consider how unforgiving the driveway might be. More likely, he didn't care. In any case, the asphalt hits home, and he feels the scrapes. 
 
From the pavement, he looks up to his father for a reaction. In a quick but perhaps defining instant that seemed to drag on forever, dad pondered his options. For most kids, sympathy might be the card to play here. But this wasn't most kids. 
 
"You're OK. Get up and throw some dirt on it," dad years later recalls saying. "You're gonna be fine."
 
The boy considered it for a moment then heeded dad's advice. He popped right back up, the blood still streaming down his knee. Dad was right; he was fine. In fact, he's more than fine.
 
He's Will Grier.
 
"I think if I would've reacted differently and said 'Oh, no – are you ok?' he would've probably started crying," says Grier's father Chad, regarding the counsel he offered his son in that driveway two decades ago.
 
"I'm not sure that makes me dad of the year anywhere, but he did bounce right back up and that's kind of been his M.O. from a physical toughness perspective his whole life."
 
That toughness has served Will Grier well. It's one of the many things that helped him settle into the saddle at West Virginia, a program and a fan base that have always embraced signal callers with a rugged side.
 
Mountaineer history is replete with examples. While posting a 30-4 mark as WVU's starting QB in the 1950s, Fred Wyant pulled double-duty as a scrappy defensive back. Before landing in Morgantown as a Penn State transfer, Jeff Hostetler was honored as a hard-hitting linebacker on a High School Parade All-American team that included the likes of John Elway and Eric Dickerson. The always bruised and often battered Jake Kelchner was a main cog in WVU's 1993 unbeaten regular season. Pat White finished his career with more rushing yards than any quarterback in the history of the college game. You can't do that by shying away from contact.
 
"A lot of people don't think of toughness at the quarterback position," WVU offensive coordinator Jake Spavital points out. "But you have to be one of the most mentally and physically tough kids to play that position."
 
Toughness at what's been called the mission critical position – quarterback – can have an effect that ripples throughout the roster. Knowing their QB is a difference maker who never shrinks from the more violent elements of the game can inspire a ball carrier to strain for that additional yard, or a blocker to dig deeper in the fourth quarter, or a pass catcher to be fearless in the face of contact.  
 
After all, despite the endless analytics coaches now have at their disposal, football is still a human enterprise. It's a physical game played by physical people, and those people feel pain. The key is how a player reacts in those moments.
 
For Will Grier one such moment came in 2011.
 
Heading into his sophomore year at Davidson Day School (North Carolina), Grier's first varsity football game promised to be a challenge. After all, it wouldn't just be Grier's debut but Davidson Day School's first ever contest as well. The Patriots were an upstart program built from scratch by Grier's father, who served as the team's head coach.
 
In the six years to come under Chad Grier, Davidson Day would ultimately forge a dynasty, posting a 65-9 record and winning four state championships while producing 32 college players. But going into that 2011 opener, the Patriots were an unknown and untested commodity that had yet to take their first varsity snaps. 
 
DDS would endure a four-hour bus ride 200 miles into North Carolina's Coastal Plain to cross swords with Harrells Christian Academy, the state's standard bearer among private school football programs. The Crusaders owned 13 state titles and proudly boasted of those conquests through the banners you saw as you entered the stadium.
 
It was Davidson Day vs. Goliath.
 
"They were kind of the bully on the block," Chad Grier says regarding Harrells Academy. "We knew if we were ever gonna have a winning program we would have to beat them so we scheduled them for our first game ever."
 
Trying to make a play on the third snap of the game, Will kept the football and rolled his ankle. The extent of the injury was unknown, but it looked pretty severe. Some thought it might even be broken. Between series, Will made his way to the sidelines for evaluation. With a tape cast applied to the ankle, Grier returned to action, hobbling with each step he took. Despite the injury, he threw for 314 yards and five touchdowns.  And for good measure, he ranfor an additional 119 yards on that bum ankle.

"It turned out he had a third-degree high and a third-degree low ankle sprain at the same time," his father recalls. "He never missed a play, and if you know anything about those injuries, they take a long time to heal."
 
Behind Grier's gutsy effort, Davidson Day made headlines across the state that night by toppling Harrells Academy, 61-29, in a shocker for the ages. The balance of power in the North Carolina private school ranks was turned on its ear.
 
"He had a noticeable limp for a long time after that," Chad adds. "I don't know if he got right the whole year. He wasn't full speed after that."
 
Grier didn't practice the week following the victory at Harrells and made his way around campus between classes in a motorized wheelchair. Despite never entirely recovering the remainder of the season, however, he didn't miss any action and led Davidson Day to a state championship.
 
To the average person, launching your high school career against a celebrated juggernaut might seem overwhelming. To the average person, severely spraining your ankle might signal the end of a state-title run, not the beginning of one. To the average person, the fight-or-flight response to seeing 296-pound Ole Miss wrecking ball Robert Nkemdiche bearing down on you with malicious intent would be to run like a tourist in Pamplona, not to stand tall and focus on delivering the most accurate throw possible. We'll get back to that last one a little later.
 
Will Grier is notthe average person. He was a multi-sport athlete growing up, but his primary focus was never on the court or on the diamond. Instead, he had just enough barbarian in his heart to gravitate toward the gridiron.
 
"I don't think he just loves football. I think football is a part of him," Jeanne Grier, Will's wife since 2016, says. "I think it's who he is."
 
Football, it's been said, is not a game for the well-adjusted. There are times, rare as they may be, when the graphic nature of what we see on the field forces us to appreciate that ominous observation. 
 
One such example was last November, and it took the air out of West Virginia fans the world over.
 
Saturday, Nov. 18, 2017 – seven days after WVU's first-ever victory in Manhattan, Kansas, and two days before the opening of deer season across the Mountain State. The Texas Longhorns were in Morgantown to face a hot-handed Grier and the 24^th-ranked Mountaineers on a chilly, wet afternoon at Milan Puskar Stadium.
 
It began at the 5:04 mark of the first quarter, masquerading as a routine third-and-goal from the Texas 1-yard-line. Off a play fake to Justin Crawford, Will Grier booted to the left and broke the perimeter. Grier's fake had swindled the interior of the Texas defense – minus one eagle-eyed sophomore from Nacogdoches: strong safety Brandon Jones. 
 
Jones froze for a quick beat as he processed Grier's sleight of hand then quickly reacted in full force. Jones is an active defender who doesn't hesitate to weaponize his body. He plays aggressively, runs well and is an exceptional tackler in space. On this particular snap, he put every tool in that box to use against Grier.
 
Seeing Grier sprint toward the goal line, Jones made a beeline for the football. Just as Grier left his feet and stretched the ball toward the pylon, Jones arrived for a mid-air collision. He ricocheted off Grier's hip as the football bounced free and the quarterback rolled through the end zone, tumbling into a cadre of photographers and other sideline dwellers before popping right back up. 
 
Just like he did on that driveway all those years ago.
 
It was obvious, however, that something was wrong. Very wrong. This time he couldn't just throw some dirt on it. 
 
In the 10 months that have since passed, many folks have shared with me their memory of that moment. Some were in the stands at Mountaineer Field, some weren't. Some were listening and watching from home and from elsewhere - from living rooms to sports bars to mancaves, from deer camp to a hotel room at Walt Disney World. 
 
Even one of Grier's brothers, Nash (both brothers are Internet sensations), ultimately posted a "lost vlog" of his experience in Morgantown the day Will's 2017 season ended. The entry included a cautionary header that read "Warning – Graphic Injury." The video captures Nash Grier's wide-eyed, real-time reaction in the stands to his older brother suffering the injury. 
 
Like everyone else in Mountaineer Nation, I too have a stark memory of how those grim moments last November unfolded. My perspective might be a little different than others, but I left the sideline that afternoon with an unyielding belief that Will Grier is tougher than a two-dollar-steak. And I mean every ounce of that.
 
Immediately following the injury, Grier's walk from the far side of the field turned into a trot. Dave Kerns, WVU's head athletic trainer, saw trouble from 50 yards away and went out to meet Grier at the numbers. Dave reached for Will's right hand and quickly began his assessment. Within another couple of seconds, Dr. Kelly Bal (the team's orthopedic surgeon) was also in the mix, securing Grier's wrist and taking a close look at the finger.  
 
Three feet in front of me on the West Virginia sideline, Mountaineer punter Billy Kinney offered Grier a supportive pat on the helmet as the quarterback slowly came to a stop. A voice boomed over the stadium's PA system: "The ruling on the field of a touchdown is under review."It was a development that in many ways seemed incidental at that point. 
 
As the medical staff worked on Grier, tending to a finger that had so traumatically been snapped into a very un-finger-like position, I kept waiting for him to react, to flinch or to recoil.
 
But he didn't. 
 
Instead, he stared at me as if focusing on something other than the finger itself might help his situation. It wasn't what I'd describe as an empty gaze but rather a nonchalant one, devoid of anything that might resemble discomfort, much less the agony he had to be enduring. It was the kind of indifferent 'be-there-in-a-second' look you might give your wife as you let the amusement park attendant secure the Fun-Pass around your wrist before passing through the turnstile. 
 
"After the injury happened and they put my finger back in and I was moving it around I wanted to go back out there and play then," Grier says. "But obviously when it got x-rayed and my hand was broken and stuff … I kind of understood – you have to find the balance in everything -- it wasn't necessarily smart for me to go back out and play."  
 
Some might attribute Grier's reaction, or lack thereof, to the shock that can sometimes afflict the body after such an injury. I'm not so sure. Unlike the others nearby Grier in those first few moments after he came off the field, I obviously lack any kind of sports sciences training. I'm just some dude with a headset and a mic, but to these novice eyes, Grier's expression didn't suggest he was on autopilot. To the contrary, he seemed acutely aware of what was happening – and frustrated by it.
 
That toughness was also on display during Grier's redshirt freshman season in Gainesville. Many regard the fourth-quarter heroics Grier summoned in Florida's 2015 win over Tennessee as his most recognizable moment as a Gator. There's an argument to be made, however, that his signature play in The Swamp actually came on a touchdown strike against an unbeaten Ole Miss squad that had recently upended No. 1-ranked Alabama. 
 
It was an otherwise unremarkable 36-yard scoring toss, rendered exceptional only by the iron guts Grier showcased on the play. The aforementioned All-American defensive tackle Nkemdiche plowed through a double-team and planted him like a cypress tree, but Grier never blinked. Instead, he absorbed every ounce of the hit and – off his back foot -- fired a perfectly placed post route for six. The play highlighted a first half by Grier that included four touchdowns and saw him connect on 17-of-20 throws, an effort made even more Paul-Bunyan-like by the fact that only a day earlier the Gators' coaching staff had nearly scratched him from the lineup due to a nasty stomach virus. 
 
Mountaineer fans saw that same grit early and often last year, from Grier's first TD toss at WVU (a brilliantly delivered 11-yarder against Virginia Tech in which he received a colossal shot from Hokies defensive end Vinny Mihota) to his final snap of 2017 against Texas. 
 
The 2018 season is teeming with possibilities for Grier and the Mountaineers. A special year, however, is made so by those key moments in which a team perseveres in the face of adversity. Reflect on West Virginia's most notable teams and you'll recall several instances in which each overcame tough times to beat the odds. To do so takes a little bit of luck and a lot of resilience, but it also takes a quarterback who won't back down.
 
Will Grier will brew his share of magic this fall, but there will also be hardship – those times he ends up on the ground.
 
And when he does, he'll pop right back up. 
 
Just like he did on that driveway when he was 3. Or did I say 4?
 
I'll see you at the 50.