David Sills transfers out of WVU football

David Sills is no longer a member of the WVU football program.

As reported by Matt Welch late Wednesday night, rising sophomore David Sills has decided to leave the Mountaineers in favor of El Camino College in Torrence, Calif.

The move to a lower level football program is actually a move for personal gains, in this case. Sills is a quarterback and he wants to play quarterback.

Last season as a freshman, Sills was thrust into the offensive gameplan of WVU head coach Dana Holgorsen. He didn’t play much quarterback, though. Sills was used as a wide receiver and the able-bodied athlete made quite a splash in that role.

Sills appeared in eight games and caught seven passes for a total of 131 yards and two touchdowns. His late scoring grab in the Cactus Bowl clinched the 43-42 victory for the Mountaineers over Arizona State.

Sills, obviously, is no longer listed on the official WVU football roster as Holgorsen made the news official on Thursday morning.

“We appreciate everything David has done for the Mountaineer football program,” Holgorsen said in a release. “He has done everything asked of him and has been a great teammate. He has decided to transfer to pursue his dream of playing quarterback in college. We wish him nothing but the best in all of his future endeavors on and off the field.”

Sills wound up at West Virginia almost by chance after making national headlines for committing to USC in seventh grade. He made that verbal commitment at the age of 12 when Lane Kiffin was the head coach of the Trojans. With Kiffin no longer in charge, Sills looked elsewhere.

With Holgorsen’s track record of developing strong quarterbacks and producing eye-popping numbers on offense, the Mountaineers were a logical choice.

Sills appeared in the team’s Spring Game this season and was working out with the receivers in practices. He didn’t take that as a knock to his throwing ability, but it could have been the writing on the wall for his departure.

“My heart is at quarterback,” Sills told WVU MetroNews. “That is what I want to do, that is what I came here to play,” he says. “In the meantime I’m playing a lot of receiver right now, because I want to help the team out in any possible, but I’m still going to work on my quarterback craft.”

West Virginia has an array of quarterbacks on the roster, even without Sills in tow. On top of starting QB Skylar Howard entering his senior year, the Mountaineers have William Crest, Chris Chugunov and Cody Saunders waiting in the wings.

Then there’s Will Grier.

Grier, a Florida transfer with an impressive resume behind him, is already penciled in to be the starter in 2017. A lot of things can happen between now and then, of course, but Grier’s decision to enter WVU likely led to Sills’ choice to head out.

Sills, who graduated from a Delaware football academy/high school, is still heading to the west coast, although USC may not be his eventual landing spot.

After a year or two at El Camino, he will enroll at a Division I program to compete for a staring quarterback spot.

That just wasn’t in the cards at WVU.

He’s not the first quarterback to leave West Virginia in recent years as Ford Childress also transferred out after a short tenure with the Mountaineers.

Childress is now at Fresno State.

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