AUSTIN, Texas — A season in the balance. Three yards to make two points. Who you gonna call?
West Virginia, of course, called upon Will Grier. Twice, as it turns out.
He delivered both times. A spot-on throw that didn’t count; a tuck-it-and-go that did.
A couple hours after feeling his left leg bent like a concession stand pretzel, the quarterback made the dash that licked the Longhorns.
“I didn’t necessarily feel 100 percent,” Grier said after his keeper beat Texas 42-41. “I caught the snap and I knew it was 3 yards, and I knew I was going to go get it to win this ballgame.”
The 2-point decision validated Dana Holgorsen coining this “Championship November” for a program that historically laments the month. The options afforded Grier in that monumental moment should quiet the hounds baying for weeks about Jake Spavital’s play-calling.
“We’ve never shown a QB draw with Will,” Spavital said of the game-winner.
West Virginia had never shown that lopsided 2-point formation either, which is why Tom Herman jumped out of his Nike sneakers for a timeout just before Grier delivered a slant to David Sills. He was surprised when West Virginia repeated the same set again out of the stoppage.
“We weren’t going to outsmart anybody,” Holgorsen said. “We weren’t going to call a different play than what we did.”
If Mountaineer Nation was nervous, you should have seen the Mountaineer sideline. Running back Martell Pettaway hid behind Mike Joseph, tugging nervously on the strength coach’s shirt. “I was trying not to look,” Pettaway said.
Linebacker David Long could barely draw oxygen, so he turned his back to the field.
“I said, ‘I can’t watch this.’ I turned around. I never saw it.”
Instead, Long gauged the 2-pointer’s outcome by reading the Texas crowd.
“If they were turnt up, I knew it was a problem. If they were quiet, I knew we were going home good. I saw lots of sad faces.”
Those faces sensed Texas was in good standing when Devin Duvernay hauled in a 48-yard touchdown with 2:34 left. Longhorns quarterback Sam Ehlinger, punctuating a day every bit as spectacular as Grier’s, sensed he might go 2-0 vs. West Virginia.
The clutch touchdown drive that ensued also was championship-caliber: 75 yards in seven plays, with zero third downs and zero hint of panic.
Nevermind that DKR was combustible. Or that West Virginia was playing its backup left tackle. In a put-up or pack-up situation, the Mountaineers dripped poise and maturity. Some of that experience showed in Gary Jennings. Invisible for the game’s opening 48 minutes, he made a short catch to notch a first down and then jetted through two defenders for a 33-yard touchdown.
That was the 14th time in 19 games that Grier tossed three touchdowns. In the mania of the moment, all the others disappeared— just as the disappointments of previous big games vanished also.
The two-pointer, we learned later, was pre-ordained. A decision enacted before WVU’s final drive began. A decision that told Grier, Sills, Jennings and the nervous nellies on the sideline that West Virginia was going for the win, not the tie.
“Those 100,000 people got their money’s worth,” Spavital said. “That was a pretty fun game to be a part of.”
What an ending to Saturday. What a start to Championship November.
