There’s a lot we can and might disagree upon as it relates to this discussion because it involves two divisive topics:

1. Recruiting
2. Quarterback recruiting

So, first things first, let’s establish common ground. William Crest and David Sills were signing day accomplishments for West Virginia. Signing day was before they ever played in college and allowed their performances to shape those reputations, but Crest and Sills were really good prospects. They deserve and we owe them that distinction.

The Mountaineers have not had an ocean of four-star prospects under Dana Holgorsen, but Crest and Sills were two of them, and I’d argue Crest’s status was more deserved, though it’s probably also fair to say the competition he faced and the fame Sills was gifted were factors.

But this is the game we play when it comes to recruiting. We don’t make the rules; we observe them. They were four-star players, and teams are wise to seek and collect commodities. I don’t think many coaches go out looking for four- or five-star players, but I bet they get back to their hotel rooms or campuses and discover the best of the players they like and hope they can get are touted players. Say what you want about recruiting rankings, but there are plenty of studies out there that say top teams have top recruiting classes and blue chip recruits are perfectly capable of turning into blue chip players.

All of that said, it seems to be different for quarterbacks. It’s as though it’s in a separate canister. There are, I suppose, hundreds of scholarship-caliber quarterbacks looking to play in college every year. There are 128 starting spots. Somebody’s got to play cornerback and safety and running back and receiver. But somebody’s got to be QB1, too. It’s not easy to talk kids out of the latter and into the former, and it’s not fun to talk around the fact prospective quarterbacks might have to play the waiting game, which means accepting the former to reach the latter.

But teams need quarterbacks. I don’t need to tell you that, and you don’t need a refresher course about the turnover at that position. You see schools pitching kids that they can play for a year or two at a different position and step in to play quarterback later in their careers. I’m never sure how genuine, never mind realistic, that is, but it hits two birds: teams collect commodities and kids want to play.

I’d like to see one of those studies show who followed that path and how they did. College quarterback is a full-time job, so why wouldn’t it be a full-career job? There’s Ryan Tannehill and Trevone Boykin and some other success stories in between but not too many.

I think what that study would show is many of those kids transfer — primarily to play quarterback — and many of them don’t live up to the expectations (that, in their fairness, are wholly out of their control).

For colleges, though, it’s a good gamble. Get a very good athlete — aka, a football player — and see what happens with coaching and a strength staff. Maybe he’s a starting receiver, an all-conference running back, a pro safety or just a model student who also sees the field as a cornerback.

If it doesn’t work? Well, there are two dozen or so other kids in the class and then a group just like that behind him. There are going to be a few players looking for a chance to fill a spot. And since you’re dealing with a quarterback, it’s one gamble, two tops.

(Caveat: Crest’s “jacked up” shoulder cost him the 2014 season, and I don’t think the Mountaineers could have expected that. Still, it took away his best chance to see the field by succeeding Clint Trickett and keeping Skyler Howard on the sideline, though we don’t know how a competition between a healthy Crest and Howard would have gone. Additionally, Crest and Sills both had some mechanical things coaches saw and went to work on once they were on campus, too.)

But there is a potentially bad side, and maybe we’re seeing it today with the very civil dissolution of the partnership between Sills and WVU. He gave WVU a boost last season at receiver, and he helped the team function in practice in the spring, but he wants to play quarterback. His coaches were and no doubt remain convinced he’d be a very good receiver, but it didn’t work. The heart trumps the head, and he’s headed to a good place. El Camino has a new coach who won five straight conference titles at his former job and last season went 12-0 with the nation’s top-ranked offense. His quarterback? A Division I transfer who’s now at Utah.

But the Mountaineers find themselves in a bind. Sills was good, and we don’t know what coaching and a strength staff would have done. He’s 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds, and he looked the part out there. Did he drop balls? Sure. TCU was not great. But it was also his second game. His first game was pretty good.

He was a first- or second-team outside receiver with Shelton Gibson, Jovon Durante, who’s been reinstated, Ka’Raun White, Gary Jennings and Marcus Simms (and Daikiel Shorts, because he doesn’t really have a position). The list is one shorter now, and if Gibson tries too hard, if Durante stumbles or slumps, if White dings his shoulder, if Jennings can’t continue his late-spring surge, if Simms is a freshman, well, it’d be nice to have Sills around, though that discounts the equal possibility he could lose interest or drop passes or develop slowly.

Then there’s Crest, who probably isn’t the backup quarterback as we speak, but Sills wasn’t either. So that’s two scholarship slots filled by future quarterbacks who aren’t quarterbacks, but also aren’t go-to guys at their consolation positions. Crest is devoting part of this time to quarterback, running back and receiver, so he’s not a full-time quarterback or a full-time anything. Sills was in the same situation. It’s fair to say neither is what he could be right now. All that stuff about how playing quarterback helps a receiver and vice versa sounds clever, but you know what helps a quarterback? Playing quarterback.

There’s a lot we don’t know, I’ll admit that, so it’s sort of silly to ask this, but I think it warrants a conversation. Would WVU have been better off taking a receiver instead of Sills? Are the Mountaineers in a better position if they take a slot/running back tweener instead of Crest? Should they have avoided one or the other? Is it wiser to discover and target that undeniably talented high school quarterback who probably understands he was not going to be a college quarterback? Do you stay away from physically gifted quarterbacks who might not make it and don’t want to accept it?

In fewer words, how do you handle this in the future?