A month after visiting the easternmost Big 12 school, an SEC transfer has decided to make that campus his new football home.
Citing multiple sources close to the program, Travis Haney of ESPN.com is reporting that the former Florida quarterback will transfer to West Virginia. The move, which was subsequently made official by WVU, comes a couple of weeks after a tour of schools by Grier that reportedly included Miami of Florida and Ohio State.
Just when Grier takes the field for the Mountaineers remains somewhat up in the air.
Grier was suspended in Oct. of 2015 for one full year after testing positive for performance enhancing drugs. Grier had appealed the NCAA’s initial decision, but that maneuver was shot down. It was reported in mid-December that Grier would resume workouts with the Gators; a couple of days later, Grier decided to transfer from the UF football program.
What is known is that Grier will be forced to sit out the entire 2016 season to satisfy NCAA transfer rules. As it stands now, he would then be suspended for the first six games of the 2017 season to finish off the NCAA suspension. That latter season, Grier would be a redshirt junior, and would leave him one more full year of eligibility after that.
However, it’s expected Grier and his new school will seek to have the remaining six-game suspension run concurrently with sitting out the transfer season in 2016, thus leaving him eligible for the 2017 and 2018 seasons. That appeal is thought by most to be a longshot at best, though.
That said, the school did write in its release that Grier “will sit out the 2016 season to complete NCAA transfer eligibility requirements and will have two years of eligibility remaining.”
Grier took a redshirt as a true freshman after coming to the Gators as a four-star member of their 2014 recruiting class, then started the first six games of the 2015 season before the suspension sidelined him for the remainder of the year.