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MORGANTOWN -- He is a man who exists in two worlds, the West Virginia football player named Rodney Gallagher III.
He is a receiver and he is a defensive back.
He is one of the top recruits West Virginia landed last year and his potential explodes out of him, but he is work in progress on both sides of the ball.
As Saturday's 3:30 Saturday afternoon Backyard Brawl meeting with Pitt (ESPN2) draws near, Rodney Gallagher is a player who could find himself in a position to make a big play that turns the game … maybe on offense, maybe on defense.
WVU brought him in after a heralded career at Laurel Highlands High School in Uniontown, just across the Pennsylvania border, making him fair game for both Pitt and WVU's recruiters. It was no contest. He was WVU bound from the start.
He came pretty much as an athlete, a kid who was a basketball star and who the high school team used with the ball in his hands, so he played the moment rather than the future. The Mountaineers saw him as a receiver, someone they could throw to, someone who could run reverses.
A weapon was what he was with his rare athletic skills.
But there was also a need in the secondary and his skills fit there as well, maybe even better, than on offense. So this off-season they approached him about becoming a two-way player.
Once, everyone in football played both ways, but like everything else in this life, we moved toward specialization and before you knew it we had two-platoon football, offensive and defensive players, and then third-down specialists.
So Gallagher is not only a throw to player but a throwback player and it's taking time. He is, on a much smaller scale, a Shohei Otahni in shoulder pads.
Last week, against UAlbany, he played nine plays on defense, 19 on offense and three on special teams.
And he made an impact.
How much will he play at Pitt? No one knows. And where? No one is sure.
"I think what the other team does determines how many snaps he's going to play on defense," head coach Neal Brown said.
Defense is new to him, but he's showing he can play it, narrowly missing an interception that he might have been able to run back for a touchdown.
"As he continues to progress on defense -- and he's getting better every week -- but it's all new to him. I'm really encouraged by his growth on defense," Brown said.
This is crucial because right now the secondary needs all the help it can get, especially against a Pitt team that will fling the ball all over probing Mountaineer weaknesses.
"He's got some natural coverage skills. He had one ball caught on him the other night and really, that was because he should have been shaded outside. He was shaded inside. If he was outside, he may have had a pick. He had a great break on the ball and had a PBU (pass broken up). I'm excited just watching him continuing to grow," Brown said.
Defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley is leading him through the learning process.
"When you have a guy that's naturally a good cover guy, you really just have to kind of bring him along within the menu of what you're asking him to do," Lesley said. "That's by call, by fundamentals, by technique and then you have a baseline. He does a good job in man coverage, but you're not going to do that every time so you've got to build his skills as you go but you can't put too much on him.
"It's a slow process. It's understanding as the weeks go the depths of the depense and the different things he can do. He's a good football player. Great athleticism is going to show up in everything you're going to try to do."
But there's offense, too. There, he seems on the verge of becoming a force.
"Offensively, he just missed a few explosive plays," Brown said. "I think we targeted him six times. His snaps on and how we get him touches will continue to evolve."
Meanwhile, though, he has to shuffle through so much more than everyone else.
He's in offensive meetings and defensive meetings. In the receiver room and the secondary room. It's a lot to grasp.
"He goes back and forth in meetings," said offensive coordinator Chad Scott. "This is a tough task."
It takes a special person to handle it.
"First of all, he's very intelligent, has great football intelligence," Scott said. "If he didn't have that it'd be hard for him to go both ways. We're not asking him to do a lot.
"He knows everything offensively and we didn't ask him to do that last year. So, from that standpoint, there's no issues," Scott continued. "Defensively, he spent a lot of time with them in the offseason and spends a lot of time with them during the week. Obviously, he's got to do extra when it comes to watching more film … and he does."
There is, of course, a question of whether splitting himself between offense and defense halves his efficiency at each or doubles his value. Would he be better off sticking with one, learning the ins and outs and intricacies of running routes without worrying about covering them?
Will the day come when Neal Brown needs to decide where he belongs?
Could be. Or is he simply the chosen one who can handle everything thrown at him, be it by his own quarterback or the opposition's.