West Virginia's former OC on Will Grier's background in Patriots' offense & QB's 'uncommon maturity'

If the Patriots are in the market for a quarterback in this year’s draft, West Virginia’s Will Grier already has a head start on their offense.

The West Virginia quarterback told reporters at the combine the Mountaineers “built (their) offense off a lot of what” the Patriots do in college.

“Honestly, Jake Spavital, my OC at West Virginia, watched a lot of Patriots film and built our offense off a lot of what they (do),” Grier said last month at the combine. “Obviously, different terminology, but we would see stuff and be like, ‘We’re going to do that.’ Tom Brady does all right. So, we watched a lot of Tom Brady film.”

“In 2017, we were very wide-spread oriented, which is kind of what Spav brought to the game from other places he’s been. It’s different. A lot what we did with the Patriots was we saw they were doing a lot of tighter split stuff, and they were getting free releases with guys, working isolations and different routes all the way across the field.”

And in a conversation with Spavital, the former West Virginia OC backed up a lot of what Grier said, acknowledging that if the Patriots went after Grier in this year’s draft, they’d get a guy who is well-schooled in a lot of the tendencies favored by the New England passing game.


“We did a lot of that stuff with Will at West Virginia,” said Spavital, who is now the head coach at Texas State.

Let's be honest: there are a lot of college quarterbacks out there who incorporate some elements of the Patriots’ offense into their own game. They'd be foolish not to. But it’s another thing to be able to execute in that system. Grier had impressive numbers last year with the Mountaineers -- the 6-foot-2, 223-pounder threw for 3,864 yards, 37 touchdowns, only eight picks and had a 67 percent completion rate.

Spavital, who has worked at the college level with several quarterbacks who have gone on to the NFL — including a stint with Kyler Murray at Texas A&M before his transfer to Oklahoma — says Grier is well-suited to be on the same roster as Brady for several reasons, including the fact he shares Brady’s desire for constant improvement.

“I mean, that’s one of the things Brady is so good at it — he’s always trying to get better,” Spavital told BostonSportsJournal.com. “There’s a reason why he is where he is. And there’s a reason why the quarterback spot is so heavily criticized and so many guys make so much money. Not a lot of guys can do it. You look at all the quarterbacks who have come and gone since 2001, and Brady is still there. It’s not like they roll the ball out there — good quarterbacks put a lot of time and effort into it. And that’s what Will has — the desire to improve.

“In his case, there are a lot of different areas where he needs work, but the biggest practical thing from my perspective is that he needs more snaps under center. He did some at Florida, but we didn’t do it enough at West Virginia.”



As for where he might end up, he could be one of the more polarizing quarterbacks in the draft. Some have him in the late stages of the first round -- Adam Schefter had one scout him as a "riser" after a sharp Pro Day this week, and had the Patriots as one of 10 teams he'll meet with before the draft. On the other hand, there are some who believe he's a Day Two selection.

“He has a great ability to deliver the ball to his receiver inside the catching frame — not making them extend or reach outside their frame to get blown up, that’s good. My thing is, I don’t know if he’s an ‘all the throws’ type of guy,” one NFL scout told BSJ.com.

“He’s got good timing and delivers a good ball. Maybe he’s more of a West Coast-offense guy? What they do in some places like Philly and Los Angeles, he’d be a perfect fit. If it’s more of a vertical stretch-type of system, it would be a difficult fit for him at this stage of his career.”

NFL Media draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah describes Grier as a “good all-around player,” but at this stage of his career, despite the high level of production, Grier has some things he needs to work on if he's to succeed at the next level, including arm strength and developing a quicker release.

“He does not have kind of a ‘wow’ trait. He's a good all-around player, but there's just nothing that's going to wow you in terms of an arm-strength standpoint (or) ability to really kind of create, which we've seen become a little bit more important at that position recently," Jeremiah said last month.

“And then really kind of nit-picky, but to me, he took a lot of sacks when you watch him. I just want to see him be a little bit more decisive and get the ball out of his hand. He is very accurate (and) has good touch at all three levels. But I want to see him just get the ball out (and) not take so many sacks.”

Grier has had a really unique career arc. The son of a high school coach (his father Chad served as his high school coach and was the former quarterback at East Carolina), he had an impressive freshman year at Florida, but his stretch with the Gators was derailed by a suspension involving an NCAA-banned performance enhancer.

Grier maintained it was an over-the-counter supplement, but it was the beginning of the end for him at Florida. He transferred to West Virginia and spent two-plus years with the Mountaineers as their starting quarterback culminating in a 2018 campaign that saw him finish among the national leaders in touchdown passes, passing yards, and completion percentage, which was good enough to work his way into the Heisman conversation.



Ticketed by some as a first- or second-round possibility, Grier’s maturation process really opened Spavital’s eyes. In college, he became a husband and a father, shaping what Spavital calls an "uncommon maturity" in the quarterback that would leave him unique prepared to succeed at the next level.

“There were a lot of moving parts in his life, maybe more than a lot of other quarterbacks at this stage of their lives,” Spavital said. “And he’s handled all his business like a professional. He’s a good husband and a good father and a great human being. Just from a maturity level, no one I’ve had compares to him because of everything he’s been through, both on and off the field. I know he’s very active in his daughters’ life. And then, when you throw in his mentality as the son of a high school coach, he understands what he has to do. As the son of a high school coach, in my experience, those guys understand it — they just want to win. And that’s Will.”