So that happened Monday, and I’m not going to apologize for sharing it again. It’s too much fun. And it’s proven to be valuable.

That startled me when it happened because Kevin White just hasn’t done that in front of us before. The people who line the field, be they reporters or WVU people who are around enough that they see more than us, but still aren’t allowed within the lines, agreed it was uncharacteristic of the character we knew.

Or thought we knew.

This was a guy who’d been hesitant to be out front.

Times change and people change with them. Oftentimes they’re foolish not to. It seems White would be one of those people wise to change because he needed to become a more aggressive person, someone who realizes not only that he’s 6-foot-3 and 210 pounds, but that he ought to be in charge of his position.

That’s something he said in the spring and something teammates and coaches have since echoed.

But you already knew that because we already went over that days ago, when we wondered if that was a signing of someone shedding a shell.

This is merely a glance at a player and an even smaller sample of an entire group of players at one position, but if it’s at all emblematic of something new and different, the Mountaineers should look and act much different in the fall.

Wouldn’t you know it, but we were onto something. White admitted there was purpose behind that eruption.

“I wouldn’t have done that last year either because I didn’t know everyone and I didn’t want to come off cocky and arrogant,” he said. “I wouldn’t have talked like that, but now, I can do that. The guys behind me look to me as a leader.”

 This all part of a reimagined Kevin White, someone who pesters his quarterback about getting in extra work after practice, someone who squats with four plates now after never thinking of trying more than three before, someone who dominated Law School Hill over the summer, someone who’s bound and determined to be better this season than he was last season.

Here’s a guy who’s no longer afraid to be out front.

He’d stand at the bottom and stare at the top, a place so high, so far away they say the vegetation changes, the air is thinner and on some days the grass is frosted. Again and again he’d tell himself he wouldn’t let what happened in 2013 happen in 2014.

“I wouldn’t say my numbers were terrible,” said White, who started nine times in 11 games and had 35 receptions for 507 yards and five touchdowns. “But I didn’t play like I know how I can play. I have big goals for this season, so I’d think about all that stuff.”

The goals aren’t merely numbers. They’re roles, too. White wants to be the best receiver on the team. He wants to be Trickett’s trusted target on quick throws and deep ones, on third down and in the red zone. He wants to set a course and lead the way for a group of receivers that didn’t have someone providing directions last season.

There was meaning behind those ascents up the hill and White knows it wouldn’t have been the same a year ago, when he just wasn’t as willing to stand out.

“I would have stayed in the pack, not wanted to show off,” he said. “Maybe ‘show off’ isn’t the right way to put it, but I wouldn’t want to beat everybody and make it look easy. I would have tried to stay with everyone else.”