Rushel Shell is related to Tony Dorsett, though precisely how escaped him at the moment he revealed it to a captive audience Tuesday. Certainly they’re not that close, and they’ve taken different routes of late when it looked like for quite some time like one would follow in the footsteps of the other.

Both were stars at Hopewell High, in Aliquippa, Pa., where Dorsett set all the school records and then Shell broke them. Shell signed a scholarship with Pitt, where Dorsett won a Heisman Trophy before becoming a NFL Hall of Famer. Shell spent but one year at Pitt before transferring here and further branching off on his own as a way to make it at the next level.

He’s no longer an I-formation running back. He’s a shotgun tailback who has multiple duties in a multiple offense, and that it wasn’t easy during an otherwise successful debut season marred by an ankle injury suggests it’ll be better this fall.

“You can’t just throw an I-formation back into the shotgun and expect him to be just as crisp as he was in the I formation,’’ Shell said. “There’s a lot more techniques and paths and tracks and reads that you’ve got to know, rather than just dot that I and I’m going to run right or I’m going to run left.’’

Again, though, that’s all Shell had ever known.

“It was just that it was new to him,’’ WVU running backs coach JaJuan Seider said of the transition Shell had to make. “You go from high school, where they hand it off 30-40 times a game, and you go to that other school and they just hand the ball off.’’

That wasn’t going to get Shell anywhere and he knew it. He began diversifying last season, when he led WVU in rushing with 768 yards and also caught 21 passes, but that wasn’t enough. Holgorsen has spent the offseason raving about running back/slot receiver Wendell Smallwood and how he fits into both West Virginia’s offense in particular and modern offenses in general. And Shell took note.

“I just felt like I wanted to show everybody that I could do anything they wanted me to in an offense,’’ Shell said. “Right now, multipurpose backs are in style. Those are the ones that are getting paid for what they do. I had to do it. I didn’t have a choice.’’