MORGANTOWN, W.V. -- It sagged toward the back such that some nights he would wake up and find himself wedged under the back cushions, almost stuck, needing to reposition to free himself. Incalculably old and worn, the couch's original light brown color had given way to a more grayish tone, and sleeping on it could be unforgiving.

David Sills V's head always rested flat on the seat cushion, because sleeping with it on the armrest guaranteed a stiff neck in the morning. His calves crossed the opposite armrest if he unfurled his 6-foot-4 frame to its full length. That's how he preferred to rest, but if he awoke with numb feet from cut-off circulation, he'd curl up and roll to his side.

The dreams. The hype. The expectations. Two years ago, they all landed, with a thud, on Khaliel Rodgers' couch in a tiny studio apartment in Los Angeles.

Six years earlier, then-USC coach Lane Kiffin had made Sills the youngest star recruit in college football history, offering the quarterback a scholarship at the tender age of 13 before he'd ever taken a snap in a varsity high school game. A couple days later, "Good Morning America" put the wunderkind in front of a national television audience. This was the peak from which die-hard recruiting enthusiasts -- a massive segment of college football fandom -- began scrutinizing the career trajectory of a child.

Sills first walked through the door of Unit 106 in the Anatole Apartments just in time for the Fourth of July weekend in 2016. He surveyed Rodgers' studio and began figuring out how he could share just a few hundred square feet with one of his best friends without being an imposition. The two had been teammates and close friends since middle school, though Rodgers is older by two years. This tiny living space was small enough to put the compatibility of any two people to the test. There wasn't room for Sills' clothes, so the trunk of his Dodge Charger served as his closet for a few months. He kept a few possessions -- a laptop, a few rolls of football tape, a couple pairs of shoes and footballs covered with large scuff marks -- in a corner of the studio, as far out of the way as possible.

He was there to reclaim and redeem a quarterback career in which countless hours and dollars had been invested. A career that everyone but himself, his closest friends and maybe a few people who shared his last name had given up on.

He came to prove all the doubters wrong.

He left to prove something entirely different.

In a flawlessly clean dining hall for West Virginia football players, Sills sits on a cafeteria chair, politely skipping along the highs and lows of one of the greatest and most impossible tales college football will ever know. His neatly trimmed, short brown hair is a much more studious and mature appearance than the blonde, more moppish look he carried when America first saw his face at 13. Considering he's been asked constantly to update this saga since the day Kiffin made him famous almost a decade ago, he speaks with a remarkably calm and measured tone. And after nearly half an hour with an engaged, forward lean, he finally sits back and looks up. His first real reflection.

"Right now, I'm having the most fun I've ever had playing football," he says.

In 2017, his first full season to ever play wide receiver, Sills established himself as one of the best in the college game. His 18 touchdown catches led the nation, and with 15 more as a senior last year, he completed his career with an incredible average of more than a touchdown catch per game (35 in 33). His position coach, Tyron Carrier, describes a much more seasoned receiver than Sills actually is.

"He has great hands and comes in and out of breaks really well. He's smart, and he's gotten very physical on the perimeter," Carrier said. "And he doesn't give away routes, so you don't know if he's releasing inside or outside, breaking left or right, nothing. He makes everything look the same to the cornerback -- whether he's going to run past you, or block you, or run a 5-yard stop route."

An NFL career is coming for Sills, but the quarterback dream he relentlessly pursued from age 7 to 20 is now a pile of proverbial ashes, lost between those couch cushions back in Los Angeles. Near the end of his six months in L.A., he finally, painfully, acknowledged that the quarterback he'd always seen in the mirror was actually -- underneath it all -- a wide receiver scratching to be released.

Other than a limited foundation of experience, there is plenty for NFL scouts to like. At 6-foot-4 and 203 pounds, he's thin but wiry strong, with long arms and what Mountaineers QB Will Grier calls a "ridiculous catch radius." If Sills' testing results at the NFL Scouting Combine next week match what he's shown WVU strength and conditioning coach Mike Joseph, he'll broad jump 10-4, vertical jump 34 inches and run a 40-yard dash in the low 4.5s -- all impressive marks, given his size. Joseph used to be part of Notre Dame's S&C staff and sees athletic similarities between Sills and former Fighting Irish star WR Jeff Samardzija, who a decade ago passed on an NFL future for a Major League Baseball career as a starting pitcher.

Then, there is the ceiling factor. Sills' lack of experience as a receiver is, to WVU coach Dana Holgorsen, a potential strength where his NFL future is concerned.

"As good as he is, I think he's so far from what he could be," Holgorsen said. "He does things naturally, but as far as technique, he was behind last year. I'm not sure he really knew what he was doing, but he was catching touchdowns."

Steve Clarkson didn't know what to think. The youngest quarterback he'd ever trained was 13-year-old Jimmy Clausen, and the accomplished instructor considered 10 to be far too young for formal private training. Nevertheless, when David Sills IV called and asked Clarkson to merely look at his son for a one-time assessment, the QB guru agreed. The Sillses flew to Los Angeles from their home in Bear, Delaware, for the introduction, and Clarkson was amazed at the young quarterback's ability to mentally absorb and apply instruction.

"He showed me enough that I started asking myself, 'How young is too young?' " Clarkson said. "I had always felt like 10 was much too young, but I took it on, almost like an independent study."

Nov. 2, 2013 is a day Sills won't ever forget, but he looks down at his right hand and sees no reminder of it. There is no noticeable scar, no physical indication of how badly it was mangled, but it was the day the unraveling of his career as a quarterback began.

Sills' high school teams played a gauntlet of a national schedule, against powerhouse programs from Ohio to Florida to Texas, and a game against Lakewood (Ohio) St. Edward at the University of Penn in West Philadelphia took place on the day everything changed. In a brutally physical game, a St. Edward player's helmet crushed Sills' throwing hand, breaking a knuckle and causing significant swelling. Although he played through the injury, it permanently impacted his release.

Clarkson, who attended several of Sills' high school games, was there.

"He had taken a pretty good beating that day. His mom was like, 'Shut him down.' It was a football version of 'Rocky,' and she was ready to throw in the towel," Clarkson said. "All this in a stadium with a [Chuck] Bednarik statue, with the Rocky statue around the corner. It was pretty poetic."

Weeks later, Clarkson noticed Sills had changed the way he gripped the ball, and his release had developed a hitch because of the injury. He never again threw a football with the same fluidity, and the issue was noticeable to Holgorsen during the recruiting process at West Virginia. Holgorsen wanted Sills anyway, for his athleticism and obvious leadership skills, but didn't see a quarterback.

"To me, you just look at it and it's a yes or no," Holgorsen said. "If you have the release, and it's quick, and it looks how it's supposed to, then you look at accuracy, velocity, intelligence, footwork, all that other stuff. You know it when it's a no. And unfortunately for David, it was a no."

Sills, however, was still determined to be the Mountaineers' signal-caller.

"He would say, 'I'm a quarterback,' " said Landon Furry, one of Sills' best friends and his current roommate at WVU. "And that's not the same thing as saying, 'I want to play quarterback.' His mindset wasn't, 'This is the position I want to play.' It was more, 'This position is who I am.' "

How best to have the conversation? And how soon?

Here Sills was, a quarterback to the bone and core, playing scout-team wide receiver as a freshman at West Virginia and feeling as though it wasn't at all what he signed up for. Naturally, he felt no need to mention it to his father, because he didn't consider it to be predictive of his future. He was still working on the scout team as a quarterback at times -- Holgorsen preferred him in that role if WVU's upcoming opponent featured a mobile quarterback-- and believed his turn as a starting quarterback would eventually come.

But then came the whispers.

The team's defensive backs -- including future NFL players Karl Joseph and Daryl Worley -- were having trouble covering him in practice. Defensive coordinator Tony Gibson told Holgorsen that Sills was more than capable of cracking the Mountaineers' playing rotation at receiver. Holgorsen, in turn, began broaching the subject with his freshman.

Some nights, the sound of siren going by would keep Sills awake a little longer. Other nights, it would be random gunfire, or flashing blue lights rhythmically piercing the vertical blinds that hung just above the old couch.

Khaliel Rodgers' tiny studio, in the Anatole Apartments in South Central L.A., was surrounded by activity that typically fell between suspicious and criminal. Iron bars protected first-floor windows, including Rodgers' Unit 106, and were painted an odd-looking green to match iron fencing around the parking lot. Pull up the Anatole on Yelp and three one-star reviews paint a picture of drug dealing, oft-burglarized vehicles and rampant prostitution. Sills recalls being approached by drug-impaired strangers -- "and I don't mean on marijuana," he said -- and Rodgers noted the frequency with which cars would roll by at disturbingly slow speeds.

Its proximity to USC was convenient for Rodgers, but it was no place for the faint-hearted. Sills didn't care. There was work to be done.

An uneasy feeling would come over James and Jessica Huether whenever they heard the screech.

Sills was home, or at least at his temporary home. The brakes were so bad on his Charger, they would squeal as he pulled into a parking spot of the Huethers' El Segundo condo and the two would look at each other and wonder what they would say when he walked in.

Should they ask if any college coaches had called?

Should they not ask?

Should they keep the subject off football altogether?

El Camino's 2016 season was winding down fast, and Sills' plan for a one-year pit stop in junior college on his way to quarterbacking at a high-profile school hit a snag he'd never even considered: no college was showing interest.

The El Camino offense struggled at times. Sills completed just 53 percent of his passes, but Kaub is quick to point out that there was very little help around him.

"We had no receivers who could get open against man coverage," Kaub said. "So all David had to throw to was a pretty good tight end, and every week we'd see a loaded box and Cover Zero from the defense. There wasn't much he could do."

Sills didn't wear his despondence on his sleeve, but the Huethers could sense his concern for whether he would ever make it back to the FBS level as a quarterback.

"We wanted to keep his spirits up, but we knew he was running out of time," James said.

Sills had bid Rodgers and the couch farewell in mid-September and moved in with the Huethers as a matter of convenience -- it was significantly closer to El Camino than the Anatole. Jessica Huether, who worked for Clarkson, had known Sills since he was a kid and was glad to take him in for the remainder of the semester. He'd endeared himself to the newlywed couple as a flawlessly well-mannered house guest, and they attended every Warriors game -- home and away. At one game, James counted a total of 13 people in attendance.

Months earlier, Kaub asked Sills if he wanted to be recruited only as a quarterback. The answer was an emphatic yes, but the feedback from colleges was an emphatic no.

"I don't want to say which schools, but they wanted him as a receiver and they'd say, 'If we have to offer him as a quarterback to get him, we'll do it, then we'll move him,' " Kaub said. "I shut all that down. I said, 'Don't lie to my kid. Don't be duplicitous recruiting my players. They don't want me to oversell them on a kid who can't play at their school, and I expect in return that they're square with my guys about their intentions."

The Warriors' season was a rough one. A nasty ankle injury put Sills on crutches for a couple of weeks, but more distressingly was that the flaw in his delivery never corrected, despite continued work with Clarkson.

"When he started his motion, he had this little weird twist with his wrist that added at least a quarter-second to getting the ball out," Kaub said. "I couldn't get mad at him because I knew he was on the same page with me as far as reading the defense. He saw where to go with the ball as fast as you could ask. The mind was willing; the body couldn't do it."

El Camino coaches had warned Sills that at the junior college level, serious recruiting didn't even begin until late in the season, so he wasn't initially worried. However, when the top programs to visit El Camino finally made their way to the school, Sills realized he wasn't the player they were there to see. Their interest was in defensive tackle Ray Lima, who signed with Iowa State, and Sills had not one scholarship offer as a quarterback.

When he had chosen to transfer to a junior college in the summer, the plan had been to sign with his new FBS school in December and be enrolled as a quarterback for the spring semester in January. But now he found himself three days away from the NCAA dead period for recruiting -- after which schools would not be allowed to contact him -- and had nowhere to continue his football career.

He wondered if it was finished. He wondered if all the training, all the effort, all the vast potential would end with popcorn applause from a few parents still in the stands after El Camino's final game.

"It sucked," Sills said. "It sucked."

As the window began to close on Sills' career, Clarkson bottom-lined it for him.

"I asked him if it was more important to play quarterback or to play on Sundays," Clarkson said. "I think that helped him change his mindset."

Rodgers had made the same point, and Sills finally began to warm to the idea. This time, he wasn't worried about what his dad would think of a career at wide receiver. Both had come to terms that playing quarterback was no longer an option. Trouble was, playing receiver might not be an option, either. When Sills told Kaub months earlier to inform recruiters he wasn't interested in playing wide receiver, he eliminated possibilities that he now wished were still available. He reached out to another of his high school and college teammates, WVU receiver Daikiel Shorts, and let him know he was willing to return to Morgantown as a receiver.

Holgorsen didn't maintain any direct contact with Sills during his time at El Camino, but he had one of his staffers keep tabs on his performance. Sills had no way of knowing if an offer would come at the 11th hour, or if WVU even had an extra scholarship to give. Turns out, his willingness to play a bit of wide receiver as a WVU freshman was the only reason Holgorsen still had interest.

"If I hadn't seen what he was capable of at that spot, I doubt I would've brought him back," Holgorsen said. "If he'd not played and I hadn't seen the potential, why would I?"

Sills took the call from Holgorsen at the top of the stairs in the Huethers' condo. He could be a Mountaineer once again. He hung up, laid down on his back and fought off a few tears. Holgorsen emailed a letter of intent, Jessica Huether scanned her house guest's signature with her phone, and the paperwork cleared just ahead of the deadline.

Sills looks back on his six months at El Camino now as a necessary vehicle for quarterback closure. It was nothing he hoped it would be, but in hindsight, exactly what he needed.

"The last thing I wanted to do was be 35, look back, and say, 'I didn't see it through,' " Sills said. "Now I don't have to live with that regret."

Sills' mental shift from a quarterback's identity to a receiver's was, by all accounts, as quick and sharp as a heel turn. He spent another week with the Huethers before returning home for the holiday break and began testing himself in receiver drills with a trainer in his final days in Los Angeles. Holgorsen knew Sills would make a clean mental break. Carrier wasn't so sure.

"I did wonder if we'd be getting a receiver still wanting to play quarterback," Carrier said. "But he didn't pout at all. It was the opposite. He was a sponge."

Sills and Grier -- the Mountaineers' star quarterback and one of the top draft prospects at his position -- have become the closest of friends since Sills returned from his JUCO exile. Grier also left no doubt as to Sills' initial mindset.

"The first day he came back, he called me asking if I would throw to him," Grier said.

Added Kaub: "The junior college grind -- it's a make-or-break thing. You either crash your ship on the rocks, or you make it to shore. David made it to shore."