MORGANTOWN — No amount of cost-benefit analysis is going to keep David Sills from his final game as a West Virginia Mountaineer.
Sills knows there’s a risk of getting hurt when the Mountaineers play Syracuse in the Camping World Bowl on Dec. 28. But if you aren’t into risks, football is the wrong line of work.
“I love playing the game, I love playing football,” Sills said. “There will be no doubt in my mind that I 100-percent, full-heartedly want to play.”
Sills could have gone the route of teammates and close friends Will Grier and Yodny Cajuste, who are sitting out the bowl game to avoid catastrophic injury before the NFL Draft. The proof is already in the pudding for Sills, who has more than 2,000 receiving yards and 35 touchdowns in his three-year West Virginia career.
But the idea doesn’t sit well with him.
For one, he’s still not convinced that he can’t improve his draft stock with a big game against Syracuse. Secondly, he’s just not ready to enter the world where the game becomes a business. For one last time, it can be pure fun competing with guys who are there for the same reason that he is – West Virginia itself.
“I think it helps to put more good film out there,” Sills said. “But also to end and leave with a win. That’s something that’s very important to me. This university and this state has done a lot for me so I want to do everything I can to leave this team and leave this university with a win.”
Sills bears no grudges towards Grier and Cajuste, and especially not with fellow receiver Gary Jennings, who is sitting out to recover after playing the second half of the season with a high ankle sprain. He has seen all of them put their bodies on the line for West Virginia.
“I’m not mad about the decision they made. It’s their decision,” Sills said. “Everybody’s got a different path. That’s the path that’s best for them, I guess.”
Sills and his teammates were open with one another about their future intentions. And because he respects them so much, Sills said he put up minimal resistance to convince them to join him against Syracuse.
“I understand where they’re coming from. It’s a decision that they made,” Sills said. “We’re all grown men here now. They’re my great friends, so whatever decision they made, I’m all for.”
For Sills, there’s an element of making up for lost time. He left West Virginia after his freshman season to play quarterback in junior college with the hopes of latching on somewhere at that position. WVU and receiver ended up being where he belonged, so he came back.
As a senior, he knows this is his last opportunity to win a game with a WV on his helmet. And for Sills, that’s all the motivation necessary to play in a game that couldn’t be more meaningful in his eyes.
“I just want to win,” Sills said. “Do whatever it takes to play my last game as a Mountaineer and give it everything I have and leave with a win. That’s all the motivation I need. That’s what’s pushing me to push through.”
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