Previously in The Good and the Bad of WVU v. Iowa State, we wondered about how the Mountaineers were using Rasul Douglas.

I’ve been following this for a while, and Douglas plays left and right. Not all the time. Not every game. But it’s true. The only pattern I can discern is that Adams is using Douglas as a constant and having Maurice Fleming and Antonio Crawford, who didn’t play Saturday, cover the side or the player Adams wants them covering. Each has a strength, or Adams has a preference for each, and Douglas is able to make sure the defense has the best matchup no matter the personnel. It’ll never make his portfolio for Big 12 defensive player of the year, but that speaks to his value.

Nailed it! Maybe he wasn’t (voted) the defensive player of the year, but he was “extremely valuable” to the defense that ranked No. 1 in Big 12 play in scoring defense, total defense and forced turnovers. Douglas played on either side solely to ensure that the other side had the matchup that suited the defense best.

“It was more a matter of who was running with him,” Adams said.

Running with him, not against him. That’s an important designation, especially in the Big 12, which counts a number of star receivers on its roster of explosive passing offenses. Adams could have assigned Douglas to the opponent’s top outside receiver, but Adams would have compromised his defense.

He didn’t game plan with Douglas’ receiver in mind. He was thinking of Douglas’ teammate on the other side of the field.

“Rasul is the kind of guy you can just put somewhere, because he’s going to be able to hold up no matter where you put him,” Adams said. “For me, it was about the other guy. If you take away one side of the field and the other side is not as strong, they’re just going to go to the other side. What good is that? So how do we stack the deck so we win both times?”