Grier More Grounded After Redshirt Year
Thursday, March 19, 2015 | Football, Chris Harry
Editor's Note: On Wednesday, GatorZone.com senior writer Scott Carter profiled incumbent UF starting quarterback Treon Harris. Here's a look at redshirt freshman Will Grier. Both players are vying to take the 2015 opening-day snap for new coach Jim McElwain.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Consider the circumstances under which Will Grier arrived at Florida.
One of the most decorated quarterback prospects in the country, Grier graduated from his North Carolina high school early for the spring semester of 2014. At the time, Jeff Driskel sat atop the UF depth chart, yet was coming off a season-ending broken leg and hadn't exactly put his name alongside Danny Wuerffel and Tim Tebow in the school record books. Another promising freshman quarterback, Treon Harris, showed up in the summer.
From the looks of things, an opportunity was there to be seized.
Grier, though, had the bigger picture in mind, eyeing the advantages of sitting out the 2014 season, taking a redshirt year, and learning what it means to be a college athlete; a college quarterback.
“It was planned when I first got here,” Grier said Wednesday. “From then on, it was kind of like, 'Be ready. Just be ready.” We never really knew [what would happen], so I always had to be ready.”
Then came a lower back injury that cemented his sit-out status.
So while Driskel struggled and Harris was thrown into the Southeastern Conference fires, Grier took it all in from the sidelines, in the meeting room and everywhere else, all the while focusing on rehabbing his back, building his body and honing his craft to get to this very point.
He's now in a spring battle with Harris -- one that almost certainly will carry into August -- to be Florida's starting quarterback in 2015, the Gators' first under new coach Jim McElwain.
Will Grier came to UF hoping to sit out the 2014 season. That plan, coupled with a lower-back injury, came to fruition. Grier is now competing to be Florida's starting quarterback." (Photo: Tim Casey)
Grier called his season to observe “a blessing.” Now comes the process of marrying what he learned to a skills set that allowed him to pass for an astounding 14,565 yards and a state-record 195 touchdowns at Davidson Day.
“Right now, it's just learning the offense. Being vocal,” Grier said of these opening days of McElwain's spring drills. “This team needs leadership, this team needs a voice, needs an identity. At this point, it's still really early in the spring. We're going through a lot of growing pains and working with a lot of guys and working through a lot of different things. It's just still early. We have a lot of stuff to work with and I'm excited to get rolling with it."
That he's rolling alongside Harris is just fine. The two couldn't help but grow close during their true freshman seasons, with Grier having a front-row seat after Harris relieved Driskel five games into the season and completed 49.5 percent of his passes for 1,019 yards, nine touchdowns and four interceptions before a thumb injury sidelined him in UF's 28-20 defeat of East Carolina in the Birmingham Bowl.
Both have been playing quarterback a long time, so they know the drill. This is not personal.
"Me and Treon are real close,” Grier said. “We kind of came into this last year and together we were the young guys. We were the ones that were new to the college thing and everything else. We're really close friends actually. It's been cool, coming from two completely different backgrounds and coming together at a place like this -- a great school, great program -- and being able to work with a guy like that.” 
In their very brief time together, McElwain has been encouraged from what he's seen from both players. McElwain was brought to UF to fix an offense that's been spinning its wheels for five seasons. His demands, along with those of offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier (pictured on the left, alongside McElwain), will be considerable.
“There's a lot of things that obviously going along with playing the position,” McElwain said after Spring Practice No. 2 Wednesday. “As I asked them, what color jersey are we wearing today? For the most part, they've thrown it to – the offense has been in blue -- so they've thrown it to the guys in the blue jerseys. Ball security is something we've got to constantly talk about, but they're grasping what we're trying to get accomplished. I think it's been pretty good."
That includes that not-so-subtle nuance of taking a snap from under center.
Doesn't seem like such a big deal, but in the era of shotguns, pistols and spreads, one of basic fundamentals of the game has in many systems disappeared.
Not in McElwain's.
That's why Grier has invested time watching tape of how quarterback AJ McCarron did it for McElwain, then offensive coordinator at Alabama, and how quarterback Garrett Grayson did it for McElwain, the head coach, at Colorado State.
Their drops, their footwork, their mechanics, virtually all of it from under center.
“It's not a huge adjustment,” Grier said.
He did some of it growing up, but most of Grier's damage -- or should we say carnage -- came in the gun and the spread.
The 2013 Parade Magazine National Player of the Year, Grier passed for 4,989 yards and 77 touchdowns his senior season, adding another 1,251 yards and 13 touchdowns rushing. In the state championship game, he went 32 of 42 for 599 yards and seven scores. Heck, he once passed for 837 yards and 10 touchdowns in a playoff game.
But the SEC is galaxies from North Carolina's Division II prep-level ball and Grier seems to have a level-headed grasp of that. He also has an air of confidence about him, which is always a good thing at the quarterback spot.
It's a trait that's been missing from the position since a certain No. 15 terrorized the league.
“I learned a lot from Jeff,” Grier said of Driskel. “He was in here every day, the whole day, studying film and stuff like that. He did a lot of really good things and did some things not as good, and I try to take as much as I could from that and learn from it. I think it was good seeing the guy that had been there for three years, to kind of sit back and watch that and learn from him -- and that's one thing I did learn; this team needs a vocal leader and somebody to kind of step up and be a little more vocal. So I try to take that upon myself and get out there and get after it a little bit."
With two more weeks of spring, four months of the offseason, and what figures to be a grueling training camp (and quarterback duel) on the horizon, Grier will be getting after it a lot of bit.
