Something hit me last night and it’s still spinning around in my head. We’re trying to figure out the receiver position at WVU and sort out the best five skill position players — and that, again, is a big part of WVU’s attack because of its aim to apply multiple tempos. You play faster without subbing.

Daikiel Shorts is, according to people on defense, the team’s best all-around receiver. He can and will play inside and outside because he knows and has handled both positions. He says, though, that he’s an inside receiver now. I asked him where he’d put his name if I handed him a blank depth chart and he said, “Inside.”

So here’s an idea, which is not to say it’s the idea: The wide receivers — two or three of them, at least — are all right and Shorts and Jordan Thompson will give the Mountaineers punch inside. The offense then branches out from there.

Shorts can play outside, where at the moment he’s still probably one of the best three there, unless Holgorsen is sandbagging like never before. With Shorts outside, WVU can again go with what have become traditional three-receiver, two-back sets.

But Rushel Shell wasn’t in that “best five” answer yesterday, and that he wasn’t mentioned seemed, to me, perhaps as noteworthy as when Holgorsen dinged Shell late in camp. Wendell Smallwood was mentioned, which, sure, means he is good enough to be the running back next to Shell on one play and then hurry with the offense to the next snap and play inside receiver.

But what if the sandbag is real (if not now, then at least in the near future) and Shorts is inside and Smallwood is a running back who can play inside receiver? It’s been a long time since WVU featured four- and five-receiver sets. It’s unlikely that ever becomes the base of the offense, but might we be witnessing the re-emergence of a tactic that was once very good to the Mountaineers?