Last year, it was Adrian Peterson who set the football world on fire by having one of the best individual seasons in NFL history—months after recovering from a torn ACL.

This fall, two key components off last year’s potent Grand Valley State University offense will look to have a comeback that is reminiscent of Peterson’s.

Quarterback Heath Parling and running back Chris Robinson, both juniors, had their seasons cut short last year with torn ACLs.

First, it was Parling who suffered a tear of his ACL during a rollout in a 28-0 win against Tiffin University. Then, the following week, Robinson suffered the same fate in a 46-41 win over Ohio Dominican University.

“At the time of the injury, honestly, I didn’t think it was too serious,” Parling said. “I thought I sprained something or tweaked something in my knee. Later on, once I got the MRI results, it hit me that the season was over and that I had to move on, but also be there the rest of the season for my teammates and help in whatever way I could.”

Both Parling and Robinson underwent surgery to reconstruct their ACLs. Robinson used a cadaver graft, while Parling, who couldn’t remember off the top of his head which graft he used, was certain that it was a graft from his own body.

“Their rehab is progressing,” GVSU head coach Matt Mitchell said. “They’re probably a little bit different timetable. I think Chris is a little bit ahead of Heath. Unless something happens in the course of his recovery, I don’t think there will be any issues with Chris starting for fall camp. With Heath, there’s still a lot of time left so we’ll wait and see how things move along in July.”

For the first time in their careers, both players faced a serious injury that put them out for an extended period of time. However, they didn’t let that get them down, but instead saw it as another challenge to overcome.

“I never had a really big injury like that, so I was kind of lost,” Robinson said. “Just having the coaches and my teammates and my family members tell me that it’s a minor setback for a major comeback made me want to push myself even harder to get myself to comeback…Our head trainer Mark Stoessner always used to joke with me about coming back being like Adrian Peterson. It’s been imprinted in my head that if Adrian Peterson can do it, then why not me?”

While Robinson draws inspiration from Peterson’s recovery, Parling has maintained a positive, forward outlook ever since he heard the results from his MRI. In the long run, he hopes to be even better than he was last year.

“I wouldn’t say it was shock or sadness,” Parling said about his feelings when he heard the news. “It was just kind of this is what happened and you have to deal with it and move on. I want to be back at the player I was, but in the long-term, I want to be better.”

Junior Isiah Grimes filled in admirably for Parling, completing 119-of-203 passes for 2,213 yards, with 22 touchdowns and eight interceptions. In two-plus games, Parling managed to complete 38-of-59 passes for 525 yards, six touchdowns and no interceptions.

Given Parling’s health situation, along with Grimes’ performance last season and his strong showing in spring camp, GVSU will have a quarterback competition this fall for the starting job,

“Until Heath is cleared and is healthy, then Isiah Grimes is our starting quarterback,” Mitchell said. “He did a great job in spring and came out of spring clearly ready to head into the 2013 season. Heath’s not ready to play right now. He hasn’t been cleared to play right now. Given those set of circumstances, Isiah is our starting quarterback right now, but that dynamic could change if Heath is ready to go. Both guys know there is gonna be some competition heading into camp and neither one of them has a problem with it.”

While they may be competing on the field for a job, don’t expect this to be your typical “competition” where one person wants to see their opponent fail.

Grimes and Parling’s relationship extends beyond football, and whoever is under center for GVSU in the first game Sept. 7 against Azusa Pacific University, the biggest supporter for the guy playing quarterback will be the guy on the sidelines who competed against him for the job, but came up short.

“He’s one of my best friends on the team,” Parling said of Grimes. “He’s my roommate and he was probably my first friend when I came up here my freshman year. Me and him kind of have the same personalities and we’re great friends. It’s gonna be fun more than anything…People always think of a competition as something where you hate the other guy that you’re going against. It couldn’t be further from the case in our situation. We’re gonna go out there and do our best and be out there to support the other guy too, and it will come down to Coach Mitchell’s decision who he thinks is a better fit to lead the team at the time and we’re gonna respect his decision and we’re still gonna be best friends after the decision.”