Since Tim Tebow left Gainesville, the Florid Gators have been searching for their next star quarterback.

The search has been a long one, as no quarterback has seemed to take the reins for the offense-starved squad.

This year, the Gators will start redshirt freshman Feleipe Franks in Week 1 against Michigan, hoping the young gun can put his stamp on the program over the next four years.

The best quarterback of the post-Tebow era may have been Will Grier, who had a good six games for the Gators in 2015 before he was suspended for taking a banned supplement.

According to Matt Hayes on Saturday Down South’s First and 10 podcast, that was enough for coach Jim McElwain to be done with Grier, basically forcing Grier to leave Florida:

“There was hope there with Grier. Two years ago when they started out 6-0 with the big win against Tennessee at home and absolutely demolished Ole Miss, it looked like the Gators had themselves a QB of the future in Will Grier. Until Grier messed up and took a supplement that he shouldn’t have taken and was suspended for a year by the NCAA.

“There’s a little backstory to that. Last fall, I went out to West Virginia to speak to Will Grier to get his side of the story. And Will told me that when the season ended at Florida, he wanted to meet with Jim McElwain and find out what the situation was — was he still welcome back; was he part of the team? McElwain initially said that Grier was searching for ‘guarantees.’ Grier completely denies that. McElwain kind of backed off of that later when I talked to him about that.

“The reality is that McElwain didn’t really want him there and Grier moved on.”

Hayes continues by saying Grier simply felt like McElwain would rather roll the dice with Luke Del Rio and Feleipe Franks and let Grier go pursue other opportunities:

“Grier wanted to return. When I was speaking to him last year in West Virginia for a story I did at Bleacher Report, he was emotional about it. There were tears in his eyes talking about it. Not only did he love Florida, he loved the community. He loved the city. He wanted to win a national championship there. He talked about how he still couldn’t sleep at night sometimes thinking about how it went wrong. He felt like McElwain pushed him out.

“For whatever reason, McElwain had a choice. His choice was Luke Del Rio and the guy he was recruiting, Feleipe Franks. Ironically enough everyone, Grier swears that before that meeting when he met with McElwain to figure out what was going on and where his future was, he says that McElwain was two hours late because he was recruiting Feleipe Franks. And that’s why Grier and his dad had to sit in the office and wait on McElwain to come back.”

Obviously, that’s just Grier’s side of the story, so the truth is likely a mix of McElwain’s and Grier’s, but it is interesting to hear what the former Florida quarterback had to say about why he decided to transfer to West Virginia.

Listen to the First and 10 podcast below: