LUBBOCK, Texas - Check, check, 1, 2, 3. There is a good chance that latest touchdown pass you saw West Virginia score probably came from something quarterback Will Grier saw as opposed to what was signaled in from the sidelines.
 
No West Virginia quarterback since Fred Wyant in the mid-1950s has had more freedom on the field to determine what play is ultimately used than Grier.
 
Back when Wyant played, though, the players had far more control of what was going on because that's how the game was played.
 
These days, coaches want to control everything, right down to what their players eat and how much they sleep.
 
When Rich Rodriguez was coaching the Mountaineers a decade ago, all of the checks came from the sideline. All of the players used to stand at the line of scrimmage and wait for it to be signaled in from the sideline.
 
To paraphrase Rich Rod, he wasn't going to let "someone who watches cartoons on Saturday mornings" shoulder that much responsibility for the success of the team.
 
Well, Grier may watch Bubble Guppies and Vampirina in the mornings with his daughter, Eloise, but he's also watching a lot of Kansas State and Texas Tech the rest of the day with offensive coordinator Jake Spavital to the point where he has now become an extension of the coaching staff on the field.
 
He knows the West Virginia system that well.
 
"I think coach Spavital needs a lot of credit for that because he spends a lot of time with him and practices those situations," West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said. "We're giving him specific looks, and he's learning from it. 
 
"We're doing a good job with our play calling, and our formations and game prep and the cadence with how we do things to where they see things and have ample opportunities to change things. Will has complete freedom, and he's doing a good job with it," Holgorsen said.
 
Credit, too, needs to go to Holgorsen for creating an atmosphere where his key players have that type of freedom to make important decisions on the football field.
 
That's just not a common trait you see in most coaches these days. 
 
"He's doing it better than any of the other ones that I've been around, and I've been around some pretty good ones," Holgorsen mentioned. 
Wide receiver David Sills V said two of the three touchdown passes he caught during last Saturday's 35-6 victory over Kansas State were checks Grier made at the line of scrimmage.
 
Occasionally, Spavital said he is not aware of what Grier is checking into at the time he's doing it.
 
"I have a pretty good feel for what he's doing because of all of the conversations we've had through the course of the week," Spavital said. "The two plays to Marcus (Simms) for example, I knew exactly what he was going to. I was surprised that he got the same look back-to-back. Then he got the second call, which was a double move, that Marcus scored on. That's just part of the conversations we've had."
 
Of course, Grier's not perfect. There were a couple instances last Saturday when what he thought he saw was actually something else.
 
"He got baited a couple of times against Kansas State," Spavital admitted. "One of the sacks that happened, there was a protection issue that he got baited on, which is going to happen when you give a quarterback that much freedom. That's just what you have to live with, because the majority of the time Will gets us in the right spot."
 
Spavital said offensive football today is predicated on intelligent quarterbacks who can correctly identify on the field the things they see and make the necessary adjustments on the fly. 
 
We saw what can happen when a quarterback makes the wrong check as Kansas State's Skylar Thompson did when he checked out of a quarterback run into an option play to the wide side of the field on fourth and inches that resulted in a game-altering 4-yard loss.
 
That decision may have contributed to him losing his starting job for the Wildcats this week.
 
"It's hard because, as a coordinator, you can't call the perfect plays all the time," Spavital said. "You have to get that quarterback on the same wavelength as you to make sure that you're getting them in the proper call because the way teams are playing us now, it's so multiple."
 
Spavital expanded on the topic.
 
"The way it used to be back in the day where you'd just get a quarters look the whole game, regardless of what you're doing, you could take the same RPO every time and they'd never take it away," he said. "Now, you do something in the middle of the game and they adjust immediately during that drive.
 
"So, if you get back to that same call and they make that adjustment, you have to make sure the kids understand where they're going and what their next progression in the check is," he continued. "When I was with Dana in 2011-12 with Geno (Smith), when we'd call a run it was a run to the right and we would have an RPO to the left. Then, it started evolving to where you'd have RPOs to the right and to the left. Then, you got to the point where you got into protection checks so it's kind of evolved as defenses have evolved to stop us."
 
It's to the point now where Grier can veto anything signaled in if it doesn't suit what the defense is showing.
 
How much is it happening these days?
 
"That's a good question," Spavital said. "I'd have to go through and look at that. We do look at that, and we have the initial play call and what the check was. Tennessee wasn't much, but we had a few. He had a lot in the Kansas State game, and it was probably very minimal against Youngstown State. It just depends on what they're trying to do to you."
 
Thinking about it a little bit more, the topic piqued Spavital's interest.
 
"Now, I'm pretty curious about that as well," he laughed.
 
Based on the way Texas Tech plays defense, it's going to be important for Grier to once again make the right checks at the line of scrimmage on Saturday.
 
After all, it's not what the coaches know these days, but rather what the players on the field know. 
 
"I think it's going to be a good game for Will in terms of having him understand what they're trying to do to him," Spavital said.
 
"No matter who it is," Holgorsen added, "you have to function at a high level. He's doing a good job right now. 
 
"It's good to be me having him," he concluded.