From across the room, the teacher heard 3-year-old Geno Smith read a children’s book aloud.

“Once upon a time, there was a little boy ...” Smith began, mimicking his grandmother’s bouncing intonation, sureness in his voice. Her colorful stories often started that way, the same as when she read to him, cradling him on her knee, conditioning his imagination.

Now seeing the pictures, conjuring his own rendition of the words, Smith announced a new tale proudly. The teacher hurried over, alarmed by the story’s elaborate details. She grabbed the book and learned the truth: the young boy could not read yet. He had made it all up.

A visionary, he was called. After taking an intelligence test, he was labeled gifted. If his mother wished, Smith could have skipped a grade. She decided against it, preferring he mature with his peers — a notion that did not go as planned, considering Smith often grew bored after finishing his schoolwork faster than most of his classmates.

“His visions of things have always been beyond his years,” Tracey Sellers said of her son, who is now West Virginia’s quarterback and a serious Heisman Trophy contender for the ninth-ranked Mountaineers (3-0), who host No. 25 Baylor (3-0) on Saturday.