Central Florida defensive end Shaun Peterson Jr. (12) sacks and strips the ball from West Virginia quarterback Garrett Greene (6) during the second half of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Oct. 28, 2023, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Kevin Kolczynski)

MORGANTOWN — Garrett Greene hugged the football in his hands.

The game was long over and West Virginia had a win, but he wasn’t giving this one up. Not now, not as he came into his media interview after leading the Mountaineers to a 41-28 victory over Central Florida to ruin their homecoming day.

But this was homecoming for him, too, back in Florida. OK, it was Orlando, not in Tallahassee and the western panhandle where he is from, but the ball and the game converged to give it all great meaning.

This was the game ball he’d been awarded in the locker room, but it wasn’t heading for his trophy case.

“My grandma,” he said. “She’s not a huge (sports fan). She knew my dad played football growing up. She’s been a teacher for years. She’d never seen me play in person. She’d watched our games on television, but she’d never seen me play life.

“This ball is going for her.”

It had to be a treat to watch the way the West Virginia quarterback grasped this game by the throat. He symbolized what the offense has become, what the Mountaineers had become in a season that now stands at 5-3.

That may not sound like a whole lot, but remember this was a team that was picked 14th and last in the Big 12 and has actually played much better than that record would indicate. The last two losses were heartbreakers, a Hail Mary completion and lead blown away in the fourth quarter.

“We’re close to being 7-1,” coach Neal Brown admitted.

And, he would note, that the key factor in what they are accomplishing and will accomplish moving forward comes from Garrett Greene.

“We’ve got a shot because of him. He’s going to give us a shot to win the game but he has to learn to play within himself.

“It’s his enthusiasm, his leadership, his work ethic … and most of all his toughness.”

Take the play on which he injured an ankle and hobbled to the sidelines. Considering that already a couple of starting linemen had gone down during the game, losing Greene would probably be a fatal blow to the offense.

“Everybody in that locker room put in so much — between the offensive line, wide receivers, tight ends, running backs, the whole defense — they put in too much to let a little ankle take me out,” he said.

Greene understands his value to the offense, both as a runner, gaining 55 yards on 11 attempts with three touchdowns, the first quarterback since Pat White to run for that many in a game against Louisville in 2008.

He knows his value.

“This offense can be as good as I let it,” he said. “A lot of it falls on my shoulders. When I saw the game plan on Monday I knew we had a great game plan. We scored 41, but there were a lot of plays out there that we didn’t make to extend drives. There’s so many points we left out there, but we won.”

He is reckless on the field and Brown wishes he’d be a bit more safety-first minded.

There was one play where he took off with the ball and took a hammer of a shot to his midsection.

“That one where he got the wind knocked out of him, he got really smoked … but he shouldn’t have had the ball. The defensive end ran 10 yards up the field. Hand the ball off,” Brown said.

See, he missed a couple of games early in the season and it changed the WVU offense. Now, over the last three games, it has become what Brown envisioned it.

“We ran more, did a lot more read stuff. This was what we planned to look like this year, but he got hurt in an early game,” Brown said. “So now we put a lot more on him. You know he’s going to miss one or two, so it can’t be egregious. That was egregious and he got smoked for it.”

In the last three games WVU has scored 114 points, 38 per game, while racking up 1,471 total yards, nearly 500 a game.