On Aug. 5, Will Grier walked into the Touchdown Terrace portion of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium carrying extra weight.
It was the team’s official media day, and reporters from across the state had gathered around the table with Will’s paper nameplate sitting on top of it to ask him an assortment of questions before the start of the season.
After a slightly heavier version of the redshirt freshman strolled in and sat down, someone inquired about his weight gain.
"After I hurt my back I dropped down to about 200, 205," Will said. "Stayed around there for a while, then I was able to get up to 215. So about 15 pounds since I hurt my back."
Maybe he gained it by eating more during the summer. Maybe the new strength and conditioning staff’s offseason program had paid off.
Or maybe, he was burdened with the weight of the questions to follow.
What has the quarterback competition been like?
Are you ready to win the starting job?
Does this offense fit you best?
Compared to answering those questions, facing a Southeastern Conference defense was easy.
For a humble 20-year-old from Davidson, North Carolina, discussing his chances of beating Treon Harris, a friend and teammate, for the starting position was one of the last things he wanted to do.
Will doesn’t even like to give rah-rah speeches on the field or in the locker room. Boasting about himself certainly isn’t part of his M.O.
To make matters more uncomfortable, Harris was sitting right next to him, well within earshot, answering the same questions.
So, the redshirt freshman gave a seemingly generic answer.
"My main focus is just doing anything I can to help this team win," he said.
In his case, though, he meant every word.
He grew up with that mentality.
He came to Florida with that mentality.
And as he prepares to face Tennessee on Saturday with the chance to seize the starting quarterback position for good, he has continued to use that mentality to stay humble, block out the noise and focus on what he can control — doing whatever he can to help his team win.
• • •
Will grew up playing ball — any kind of ball.
Football, basketball, baseball, even some soccer. You name it, he played it.
And he dominated.
"He would dunk any which way on anybody (in basketball)," his father, Chad Grier, said. "Baseball, in his junior year he led the whole area … in home runs. They put those BBCOR bats in there the next year and he led the whole area in batting average."
Being the star of the show was never part of his motivation, though.
"A lot of kids score or hit a home run and jump up and down or pump their fist," his father said. "I never saw (Will) do it. He would just sprint back to go play the next play or get down the court to play defense. He was just focused."
Will wasn’t worried about his own accolades, either.
As a 5-year-old playing soccer, he had complete athletic superiority in his games, emerging from the scrum of tiny, uncoordinated legs with the ball and scoring at will.
At one point, one of his coaches told Will he was hogging the ball and that he should let some of the other kids score once in awhile.
So, for the rest of the game, he did the same thing as before, stealing the ball from the massive pile up and running down toward the goal. But when he got there, he would stop, wait for one of his teammates to catch up, pass him the ball and let him score.
Then, while the celebration ensued, he would immediately sprint back to midfield to be ready for the next play.
"He has that quality about him," his father said. "Unselfish."
But for all his success in other sports, nothing came close to football.
Even as a little kid, Will was always around the sport. During the summer, he would tag along at football camps that his father — a former quarterback at East Carolina — would coach at to watch the older high schoolers play, many of whom were college prospects.
One year, when Will was 10 or 11, one of the high school players asked him if he wanted to take a rep at quarterback. Without blinking, Will got in the huddle, called a play, got up under center and threw a strike to his receiver.
"Everyone kinda went crazy," his father said. "I thought, ‘Man, that’s nuts.’"
By the time Will was in high school, amazing moments had become the norm.
In his career at Davidson Day, Will threw for 14,565 yards — second only to former Gator Chris Leak in North Carolina history — and a state-record 195 touchdown passes.
In one game alone during his junior season, he threw for a national-record 837 yards — breaking Leak’s state record of 585 yards by more than 250 — along with 10 touchdowns.
He could have had even more performances like that at Davidson Day, but the team was normally up by so much at halftime that Will rarely played in second halves.
But it didn’t bother Will. The only stat that mattered was the number in the wins column.
"He never one time asked me, ‘Hey, how many yards did I get? What are my stats?’" his father said, who also happened to be his coach at Davidson Day. "He just never cared. All he cared about was winning."
• • •
Will had an abundance of options when it came time to decide where to go for college.
SEC schools like Arkansas, Auburn, and Tennessee all came calling, along with local programs like North Carolina and Wake Forest.
But after a trip to Florida and getting to know former coach Will Muschamp and former offensive coordinator Brent Pease, Will felt like Gainesville was the right fit, despite the negative recruiting strategies other schools employed.
With the stigma of Muschamp’s conservative offensive approach hovering over the program, other coaches attempted to tell Will that he wouldn’t get the opportunity to throw under Muschamp. Instead, he would be left to simply hand the ball off and let the defense win games.
But that didn’t dissuade Will.
"I don’t care if I throw it every play of the game or hand it off every play of the game," he would respond when he was presented with that argument. "I just wanna win. Muschamp said he could win championships with me, and I believe it."
Will and his family were thrown for a loop, though, when Florida also signed Harris, a highly touted prospect in the same class out of Booker T. Washington.
"We were a little surprised, frankly, when they signed Treon," Will’s father said, explaining it’s unusual to have to compete with someone who comes in at the same time as you.
"But (Will and Treon) can’t control that."
So, although not the ideal situation, Will chose not to worry about it. From his first day on campus, his year spent on the bench redshirting all the way through the beginning of this year, the only say he’s had in the matter is what he could do to better himself and the team.
"That’s out of my control," Will said about the quarterback situation during the middle of Fall camp. "That’s not my decision. … Whatever is decided and however they want to do it, we’re going to continue to do the best we can to make this team better."
His father, who talks with Will almost every day, said not once has he ever heard Will mention that he’s competing with Harris.
"He’s never talked to me about Will versus Treon," his father said. "All he’s ever talked to me about is Will versus Will."
• • •
Now, three games into the season, it truly is Will versus Will.
With Harris suspended for Saturday’s game against the Volunteers, the redshirt freshman has nothing to stand in his way but himself.
But for him, that isn’t much of a change.
"I try my best to make sure these guys know that I’m trying to be perfect," Will said at media day.
He does so daily, competing with no one other than a flawless version of himself.
"Cam, let’s be perfect today," offensive lineman Cam Dillard recalls Will saying at the beginning of each practice. "Let’s get good snaps, everybody run their routes perfectly, everybody block perfect and we can do good things."
That’s how Will leads. He doesn’t like to say something if he can do it instead.
It’s what his father calls a "servant-leader," someone who will get in the trenches with his troops to find a way to win.
"It’s something that you live day in and day out," Will said. "Leadership’s sort of a lifestyle. You lead by example every day in who you are."
Just like Will carrying the ball again and again against Kentucky, fighting for extra yards while being banged up progressively more from each hit he took en route to a 14-9 victory.
"You got the guy who’s leading the offense selling out, fighting off tackles, getting hit and you could tell he was hurting," tight end Jake McGee said that night after the game. "It’s something that gives you that extra motivation to keep going and do as much as you can to keep him from getting hit more."
Much has been made about what type of quarterback fits new head coach Jim McElwain’s system. A large portion of people agree that the former coordinator who coached Greg McElroy and A.J. McCarron at Alabama prefers a taller, pocket-passer. And with that, they believe Will is the right fit given his skill set.
But McElwain insists the only characteristic he needs in a quarterback is "being a winner."
If that’s the case, maybe Will is the perfect fit for McElwain.
Through his entire life, being a winner is all Will has ever known. And within the confines of the game, it’s all that matters to him.
Follow Graham Hack on Twitter @graham_hack24
UF quarterback Will Grier runs onto the field prior to Florida's 14-9 win against Kentucky on Sept. 19, 2015, at Commonwealth Stadium in Lexington, Kentucky.
UF quarterback drops back to pass during Florida's 14-9 win against Kentucky on Sept. 19, 2015, at Commonwealth Stadium in Lexington, Kentucky.
