MORGANTOWN - The question was pretty straight forward and the answer was even more direct and to the point.

Shannon Dawson, one of two new wide receivers coaches at West Virginia, had just gotten his first real look at what he has to work with this spring. Well aware that in order to have the type of pass-happy offense he and new offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen envision, he was asked how he might take someone like Tavon Austin or Brad Starks or Stedman Bailey or J.D. Woods - anyone, really - and make him a 100-catch receiver.

Ready for the intricate answer?

"Throw the ball more to him,'' Dawson said in all seriousness.

Well, yeah, that would probably be a pretty good start.

A year ago, West Virginia threw the football 382 times. Believe it or not, that was the third-highest total in school history. In 1998, an offense quarterbacked by Marc Bulger threw the ball 433 times. In 1981, Oliver Luck was the quarterback on a team that heaved the ball 404 times.

But not even in those seasons did a WVU receiver even approach 100 catches. David Saunders and Shawn Foreman share the record with 77 - Saunders in 1998 and Foreman the season before that. Geno Smith became only the third Mountaineer quarterback to complete more than 200 passes in a season last year, and Jock Sanders led the receivers with 69 catches.

So catching 100 passes in a season is obviously no small feat. Then again, in this new offense the school record of 433 pass attempts in a season might fall in mid-November, so those receivers are going to have a lot more opportunities.

"At Oklahoma State, I think [Justin] Blackmon caught 19 balls the year before and then he caught 120-some balls,'' Dawson said of the Oklahoma State receiver who won the Biletnikoff Award playing in Holgorsen's offense last season. "You think he was thrown the same number of balls and only caught 19 of them? He got more balls thrown to him.''

For the record, Blackmon caught 20 passes the year before Holgorsen installed his offense and 111 (for 1,782 yards and 20 touchdowns) in 2010. His is not an isolated incident, either. When Holgorsen was working with Mike Leach at Texas Tech, Wes Welker caught 86 and 97 passes his last two seasons and Michael Crabtree caught 134 as a redshirt freshman.

Dawson, meanwhile, tutored Duane Brooks at Stephen F. Austin and he had 118 catches in 2009.

So might West Virginia have a 100-catch receiver in 2011?

"Oh, yeah, definitely,'' Dawson said. "I think we've had a hundred-catch receiver probably every year for the last five years. I had a kid that caught [118] two years ago, Blackmon caught whatever, Crabtree at Tech caught 130-something one year. That's not out of the norm at all.''

Pointing toward a potential 100-catch receiver at West Virginia, the conversation naturally has to begin with Austin, who caught 58 a year ago and led the Mountaineer receivers with eight touchdowns.

Starks, meanwhile, had the highest per-catch average (16.7 yards), Bailey was perhaps the team's best possession receiver and Woods got better as the year went on. A fifth possibility is sophomore Ivan McCartney, who caught just one pass as a freshman but joins Starks as the most prototypical receivers in terms of size, both at 6-foot-3 and in the 190-pound range.

With four full-time receiver positions in the offense, all will get their chances to play, but where they line up doesn't seem to matter in relation to how many balls they catch. A 100-catch receiver could come from anywhere on the field.

"It could and it has,'' Dawson said. "If you look at the evolution of our offense the last 10 years, Wes Welker caught [nearly] a hundred two years in a row and he played H [an inside receiver], where Tavon plays. Crabtree caught over a hundred and he played Z [on the outside]. I had two receivers back-to-back that caught over a hundred and played X [outside]. And then my guy that caught 118 [Brooks] played Y [inside]. It just depends on where that guy lines up.

"We're not going to put a guy in a certain position because that position gets all the balls. It's funny how the ball finds the playmakers. Regardless of where you line them up, the ball's going to find the playmakers. It just happens that way.''

It is way too early for Dawson or Holgorsen or anyone else to pass judgment on which off this year's group of receivers has the best chance to step up, but trust that everyone will get an opportunity.

"You've got to put kids in position to make plays,'' Dawson said. "I'm biased because I've coached in this offense my whole life, but I feel like we get kids the ball in space and give them the opportunity to make plays. And I don't think every offense is geared that way."

Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.