In the corners of his mind, Warner still wonders.
"It's all behind me now," he said. "I'm feeling pretty great."
But he double-clutched at the qualifier there, the "pretty" part. And then he came clean.
"A back injury is hard to come back from, fully," he said, "There will be days when it feels good and days when my back is tight and it's harder to run. … We'll see as time goes on. I'm optimistic. It's just always there."
So it is that Warner, the linebacker from San Marcos, Calif., that everybody wanted, including schools like USC and Arizona State and Washington, is back on the field for BYU, looking to forget about last season and forge ahead to big performances this year.