While I’ll sometimes dabble in it, I try not to subscribe to hyperbole. If you follow or cover WVU football, that’s not an easy thing to do. Bill Stewart really likes to make points obvious and emphatic — and if you’re the head coach of a program with fans as curious and hungry as WVU’s, that’s not a bad habit.

Still, sometime between the second “I do” and the first spill Saturday, I checked my email on my phone and caught this from Oll Stewart.

On Geno Smith
Today was as good of a day as I have seen the Mountaineer quarterback throw the ball in pass skeleton in a long, long time. In the soon to be 11 years I have been here, Geno was hot. He was hitting the target, his reads were good and his timing was good. He just looked really good. 

That wasn’t obese hyperbole. It was an excited, though measured message, I thought, almost as if to make a point strongly, though not so strong that someone like, well, me would immediately dismiss it.

I texted someone I trust for a more even review. Reply: “Legit.”

Was this person talking about Stewart’s assessment or Eu’s performance? Not sure for I became involved in a complex prank a short while later and never sent a follow-up text.

But does it matter?

Mr. Smith is doing work in spring practice. Now, because of that broken foot, he can’t do it all, but he hasn’t had a bad day yet. He’s given everyone in his locker room a reason to feel optimistic about the fall.

He may have done that any way when the fall rolled around, but that it’s happening now — when people really weren’t sure what or how much he could do, when there was a worry about wasted time in spring practice with a soon-to-be-receiver running the offense — is an enormous relief for the Mountaineers.

Geno Smith has been really, really good and it seems Saturday was the kind of day you might have to remember for future reference. If nothing else, it made you think about the past.

But there was one player, in particular, whose image seemed to have more meaning than any other on this afternoon. He wore No. 10 on his uniform, a tall, slender gunslinger who, like the wind, had blown in from the north.

His name was Marc Bulger.

You look at the West Virginia record books and his name stands atop most of the passing records.

If Patrick White was the greatest quarterback ever to play at West Virginia — and Major Harris may have an argument that he belongs right alongside him, considering the Maj is in the Hall of Fame now — Bulger was the greatest passing quarterback.

The point?

On this cold, wind-blown afternoon, West Virginia may have just discovered the best throwing quarterback since Bulger in Geno Smith.

And yet the good news doesn’t stop there for the Mountaineers. What of that aforementioned soon-to-be-receiver? Maybe Coley White is the most gripping story in this camp. Armed with polished mechanics and — hey! — a new grip, he, too, has made everyone at WVU feel a little better about things.

It may mean nothing. He’s not unseating Eu. The incoming freshmen are expected to be very good very soon. The depth problem at receiver may not go away. White’s days at quarterback are probably numbered, but maybe not about to completely expire. His semi-surge and his showcase of skills separate from Smith’s have compelled WVU to pontificate.

“I’ve had to do the two-quarterback thing in the past and certainly there are times when it’s necessary, but if you have a clear-cut guy, I probably wouldn’t think that’s the best thing to do,” Mullen said. “Next year, I don’t know that we’ll have that.

“I’m very excited to look at Jeremy Johnson and Barry Brunetti and if those two kids show me they can play, maybe we put a package in for them. Maybe if Coley continues to improve, we put a package in for him.”