We’re all probably going to make too much of the Tajh Boyd/WVU storyline as we get closer and closer to the Orange Bowl because this really does happen all the time. Kids make decisions and change their minds and eventually run into one of the teams he once thought was his future.

But Boyd’s story is a little different. He knows that. He understands he was responsible for that. The kid who spawned Mountaineer recruiting hysteria in wholly different ways in 2008 and is now the very good starting quarterback for Clemson welcomes the inevitable.

“The T-shirt was one of those things we did at the time because he thought we were going to be special,” Boyd said. “It was all about West Virginia and what we all were going to do there.”

Oooohhh, the T-shirt …

Surely you remember that: BOYD TO HEASTIE. That was the sure-thing motto for the future of WVU football. Boyd would come to WVU with his best friend and throw a lot of touchdown passes to Logan Heastie. They’d arrive with a slew of other players from the Hampton Roads area and open a new pipeline with Chris Beatty.

(Yikes … read that paragraph and look at how much so many things have changed.)

Anyhow, the T-shirt was not some fan creation or some silly thing players did on a whim. Boyd’s mother helped make them. That’s how lead pipe lock their commitment was and why they frequently popped up in pictures with the T-shirts and the Flying WVU eye black patches and all the other trappings.

“I felt like it was going to be a pretty hot item,” Boyd said.

Then everything changed. WVU’s offense was very ordinary in 2008 and didn’t inspire awe unless Noel Devine did something Noel Devine could do and wiggled out of a tight spot to run 92 yards for a touchdown to put away a game against Syracuse.

After that game, the one where the awful Orange defense, the one that was one of the weakest in the country, held WVU to 268 yards, Boyd de-committed. Again, not unusual. Kids do it all the time, but given the way he was attached to so many other players in the next recruiting class and, potentially, all the ones to follow, seeing how highly ranked he was in every recruiting publication, there was probably a little more attention and concern given to it than normal.

Yet Boyd was doing what he thought was smart. He didn’t want to get stuck to Jeff Mullen’s anchor and discourage other schools from swooping in and sweeping him off his feet. And he hadn’t given up on WVU, either.

That’s when things got weird. Unprovoked, Oll Stewart basically singled out Boyd and his father to explain why Boyd would be playing at WVU. Boyd and his father then became enemies and punch lines among WVU fans.

It’s all in the past now and Boyd seems sincere when he says he never thinks about it and has no grudge against anyone. He even has a good sense of humor. Boyd laughs as he points out message boards still roll with — and you’ll have to forgive me if I get this wrong … I had to research it — “THIS IS TAJH BOYD FATHER” to keep some sort of a joke that started years ago running so many years later.

Again, it’s difficult to make a big deal out of Boyd’s decision because it happens so often and this one worked out well for Boyd and for WVU, which reeled in Eu and Stedman Bailey soon after Boyd bounced. But good for Boyd being able to talk about it and even discuss the one part that made his experience unlike others.

“In all honesty, my dad never directed anything toward anybody,” Boyd said.

“We wanted the gist of how the offense was going to work and everyone there took it the wrong way. That was one part of the situation I never understood.

“At that point, I was like, ‘Man, this is how it’s going to be before I ever get there? How’s it going to be when I do get there?’ I had a lot of respect for Coach Stewart, but at that point I felt like I had to look somewhere else.”