MORGANTOWN — Chicago may be a toddling town, as the song tells us. It may also be Frank Sinatra’s kind of town.

But it ain’t Morgantown and West Virginia cornerback Garnett Hollis Jr. happily has left Chicago behind to play college football where it is No. 1 on the minds of everyone.

Hollis transfers in to play cornerback and is in line to replace Beanie Bishop after playing four years at Northwestern in Chicago, where, quite frankly, they were an afterthought.

Page 1 of the Tribune and the Sun-Times was reserved for the Bears or the Cubs, for the Blackhawks and the Bulls.

It was Wrigley Field and Soldier Field.

Northwestern played Big Ten football but somehow could not gain the respect Big Ten teams have, even in its own state where the main team is Illinois and where the shadow of Ohio State and Michigan loom over them.

Northwestern couldn’t even be the biggest losers in town, at least this year, for sure, and the White Sox became the biggest losers anywhere in sports.

Hollis took advantage of his time at Northwestern. He played a whole lot of football, earned a degree and found himself looking for more, something different, something better.

“I was ready for a change,” Hollis said Friday morning. “I got my degree and did everything I wanted to in that program. For my last year I wanted to get everything I could out of college football.”

And that sent him looking for a new home, and with Bishop leaving after following a similar route, this seemed like the right place, especially after Bishop took an active role in recruiting him.

He explained it all in an engrossing 20 minutes which showed that the transfer portal is not as bad as it has been tagged all too often.

“For me, it was more like I got one year left so I want to make the most out of it. I want to make it to the next level and so the school I wanted, the school I was going to transfer to to be able to take that next step. The coaches all made me feel like I could do that; like I could be a top round guy, that I could come here and make plays.

“With Beanie’s success, they made me feel like I could have that same success. They made me feel like I had a true connection with them.”

So he and Bishop, who transferred in from Minnesota where he was part time player and became a consensus All-American, connected.

“He played a big role. I was able to talk to him a little bit in the process. Just seeing him go from the Big Ten to the Big 12 and seeing his stats, it was night and day. Me? I had only 37 targets last year in the Big Ten and he had 24 passes broken up alone at WVU, so you can see how many more times he was targeted than me,” Hollis said.

“To see all the techniques coach ShaDon (Brown) implemented and seeing it work, it was really a no-brainer to have a chance to come in behind an All-American and try to replace him. I was up for the challenge and it was something I was looking forward to,”

Just how did Bishop sell him on WVU?

“He told me it was a great program and a great culture and that the coaches really coached. That was something I was looking for. I wanted to be coached. I wanted to see my feet get better. I wanted my ball skills to get better. He told me all those things were true.

“You can get lost in all those things coaches tell you, but with him solidifying the information, I didn’t take it for granted.”

And now he’s eager to be part of football, WVU style.

“That was one thing I was excited about. I wanted to be in a college town when I came out of the portal. I never got that in Northwestern. Every Saturday, I wanted the game to be the biggest game in the state,” he said.

That wasn’t going to happen in Chicago for Northwestern

“Now, I have that opportunity. Now I can go out there and play in front of these types of crowds and these types of fans, having a fan base that is really loyal and rowdy is all I was looking for. We have seven home games and I’m going to take advantage of it.”

It isn’t just big crowds Hollis is looking forward to.

“I played in front of big crowds.. I played at Penn State. I played at Nebraska. I played at Michigan, but they weren’t rooting for me. Now to have a full stadium rooting for my side of the ball, to have the crowd super loud on third downs, that’s something I think will be night and day difference.”

He is not alone in this venture. His Northwestern teammate and best friend, Jaheem Joseph, has come to Morgantown, too, and that is both interesting and important.

“That was one thing I was excited about. I wanted to be in a college town when I came out of the portal. I never got that in Northwestern. Every Saturday, I wanted the game to be the biggest game in the state.”

That wasn’t going to happen in Chicago for Northwestern.

“Now, I have that opportunity,” Hollis said. “Now I can go out there and play in front of these type of crowds and these type of fans, having a fan base that is really loyal and rowdy like this is all I was looking for. We have seven home games and I’m going to take advantage of it.

“I played in front of big crowds. I played at Penn State. I played at Nebraska. I played at Michigan, but they weren’t rooting for me. Now to have a full stadium rooting for my side of the ball, to have the crowd super loud on third downs, that’s something I think will be night and day difference having a teammate with you.

“That’s my bro. Our families are locked in. It was easier for our families to have us in the portal and let us go do our own things together. We didn’t plan to come here together. That’s the craziest part of it.”

The two met on their official visits to Northwestern and were thrown in as roommates together.

“We became lifelong friends,” he said.

This is how they happened to end up at WVU together.

“Before I got in the portal he was being recruited by WVU hard and I told him, ‘Ask them if they need a corner.’ They did. Once I got into the portal they were diving head first into them recruiting me,” Hollis said. “Obviously I had a lot of schools coming after me and trying to swing me their way, but I felt the connection. He felt the connection, too. It was in different ways, so I feel like God wanted it to happen. So to be in the position we are in now, it was meant for us to be in the position we are in now.”