West Virginia Football: Will Grier proving preseason hype was real

The Big 12 has a contender that could really challenge for the conference title in West Virginia football, led by Will Grier.

West Virginia entered Week 2 as a huge favorite over the East Carolina Pirates. Their Week 1 loss to the Virginia Tech Hokies proved the Mountaineers would be a tough out for any team in the country. Former Florida transfer quarterback Will Grier is the one to thank for that.

Through the first two games of his tenure with West Virginia, Grier threw for 723 yards and eight touchdowns while tossing only one interception. Grier helped the Mountaineers to dominate ECU on their way to a 56-20 win.

The combination of Grier with the running back duo of Justin Crawford and Kennedy McKoy gives West Virginia a unique advantage on offense. Few recognized the potency of a Mountaineer offense that has such a talented quarterback, receiving corps, and stable of running backs.

The missing piece for head coach Dana Holgorsen on offense last year was quarterback. Skyler Howard put up some good numbers last year, but no where near what Grier is doing right now. Grier is on pace for around 50 touchdown passes and less than 10 interceptions while Howard tossed 26 touchdowns and 10 picks.

Among all the transfer quarterbacks in the country that had quite a bit of hype built up, Grier had some of the highest expectations of them all. Only Auburn quarterback Jarrett Stidham had considerably more hype than Grier.

While Stidham is struggling to adjust to the Auburn offense after two weeks, Grier has one of the best stat lines in the nation. The next two weeks present some more chances for Grier to put up huge numbers. West Virginia gets to face Delaware State out of the FCS next week. Then, the Mountaineers travel to Lawrence to face the Kansas Jayhawks to kickoff their Big 12 slate.

Next: 3 things we learned from West Virginia's win over ECU

Grier is starting to build himself a real Heisman campaign if he keeps playing this way. If he does put up these type of numbers for the rest of the season and we see the Mountaineers in the Big 12 Championship Game, Grier should be a Heisman finalist this year.