Has the moment arrived for Will Grier and Dana Holgorsen at West Virginia?

For a long time, Dana Holgorsen came across as a novelty act. Part of it was the way he looked — hair beating a steady retreat from his forehead while it engaged in such a wild party in the back that Matthew McConaughey co-opted it as inspiration — and part of it was the way he talked, which always kind of reminded me less of Nick Saban and more of a guy drinking Pabst on a lawn chair outside of a BP Station.

Holgorsen took over at West Virginia in 2011 and immediately led the Mountaineers to the Orange Bowl. But even that seemed like a fluke. Over the next six years, Holgorsen had five winning seasons but never won more than eight games. It always felt like he managed to win just enough to keep himself from getting fired. (Q: Is Dana Holgorsen on the hot seat? A: shrug emoji.) But then something interesting happened: Holgorsen stumbled upon a damned good quarterback, a four-star kid who’d done a dumb thing at Florida and was seeking a second chance.

We’d gotten a taste of what Holgorsen could do with a real talent at quarterback when Geno Smith played for him in 2011 and 2012 before the Jets — as the Jets will do — ground Smith into dust. But something happened in those ensuing years, when Holgorsen was piloting his offense with the likes of Clint Trickett and waiting for a blue-chipper like Grier to find him in Morgantown: The game began to trend further in Holgorsen’s direction. When I watched the Mountaineers beat Baylor 70-63 in 2012, it felt like a gratuitous window into that future. But now that future is here, particularly in the Big 12. And that future could wind up benefiting both Holgorsen and Grier.

It’s clear that the NFL no longer views Big 12 quarterbacks — or spread quarterbacks as a whole — with a jaundiced eye. Patrick Mahomes has forever blown our minds and burned away that stereotype. We’ve seen, also, that spread offenses like Holgorsen’s are now increasingly setting the template for professional football’s future. And I’m not saying Grier is the same apparent once-in-a-generation talent like Mahomes, or even that’s he Jared Goff. But given the dearth of NFL prospects in next year’s draft, there’s reason to believe that Grier will get a chance to become a franchise quarterback somewhere.

Grier’s stock dropped earlier this season when WVU’s offense struggled; his stock is now rising, as he’s begun to put up the kind of gaudy numbers (and put up the kind of elite throws) you’d expect him to in Holgorsen’s IDGAF offense and against teams with talented defenses and top-tier athletes. If he does it over the next couple of weeks against Oklahoma State and Oklahoma — and if the Mountaineers manage to slip into the College Football Playoff and get a shot against Alabama — he can only help himself that much more.

At the same time, if WVU wins its next two games and if Holgorsen wins the Big 12 Championship game (a potential rematch with Oklahoma), it might be time to stop thinking of him as nothing more than a $9 haircut and a dude with sensibility. Let us recall that McConaughey was once on a path to becoming a second-tier rom-com actor. Then he found his place in the dramatic universe. Maybe time is a flat circle, but both Holgorsen and Grier appear to be on the verge of an entirely new era.