West Virginia Preview: Two Key Players to Watch on the Mountaineer Offense

Oklahoma State plays their final home game of the season this Saturday against West Virginia. To preview the game, I wanted to take a look at two key players on each side of the ball for the Mountaineers. For this post, I will focus on the offense and I will come back later in the week to touch on the WVU defense.

West Virginia head coach Dana Holgorsen and offensive coordinator Jake Spavital boast the fifth ranked scoring offense in the country in terms of points per game. In addition, the Mountaineer passing attack is fifth in the nation in yards per game and sixth in total touchdowns through the air. That being said, this week’s key players are both key components to what makes this WVU passing game so powerful.

Will Grier | QB | 6-3, 223 | R-Sr.

Grier has become a household name for any college football fan at this point in the season, if he wasn’t already. The preseason All-Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year honoree has been putting up big numbers for the Mountaineers all season. He’s thrown for 2,961 yards and 31 touchdowns and also has one score on the ground. Although he probably won’t win it due to the stellar seasons Tua Tagovailoa and Kyler Murray are having, Grier is near the top of almost every Heisman watch list, and will most likely hear his name called on one of the first two days of next year’s NFL draft.

Grier has great pocket presence and awareness along with impressive accuracy on his throws, including the deep ball as shown in the clip below.

He’s no Kyler Murray, but Grier is very athletic and does an excellent job of avoiding pressure and making plays outside of the pocket.

Grier is the best overall pocket passer Jim Knowles and the Cowboy defense will face this season. However, the Pokes were able to confuse the West Virginia QB with different coverages a season ago and were also able to pressure him into multiple bad throws, like the one shown below.

Grier’s four interceptions last year against Oklahoma State were a career high for the redshirt senior quarterback. If the Cowboys want to see the same success this year, they will have to find ways to pressure Grier similar to how Iowa State did earlier this season recording seven sacks, but also not give up too much in terms of coverage. OSU found a decent balance of this in the second half against OU last week, let’s see if they can improve upon it Saturday in Stillwater.

David Sills V | WR | 6-4, 210 | Sr.

Speaking of coverage, the Cowboys will need to pay plenty of attention to Mountaineer wide receiver David Sills. The senior has been Grier’s go-to target this season racking up a team leading 697 yards and 12 touchdowns. These numbers were enough to earn him a spot as a Biletnikoff semifinalist.

Although Sills doesn’t have elite acceleration or top speed, he has still excelled as a deep threat for Grier in 2018.

Sills is a great route runner with reliable hands and isn’t afraid to get physical with opposing defensive backs. In addition, he’s the primary weapon for the WVU offense in the red zone. You can see an example of this below from the Kansas State game.

The Cowboys were able to hold him in check a season ago, as Sills finished with just three catches for 44 yards and no touchdowns, but he’s made improvements in his game from last year and will be a tough assignment for the OSU secondary.