MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Can you name the only returning player with starting experience on the West Virginia defensive line this year? If you said Adam Shuler II, you win an all-expenses-paid trip to visit North Korea.
 
Not really, of course, but the young and inexperienced defensive line West Virginia veteran defensive coordinator Tony Gibson is running out there this year resembles the forlorn communist country in this respect - both are mysterious and unknown.
 
And one of the leaders of this gang of WVU unknowns is sophomore defensive end Adam Shuler II from Altamonte Springs, Florida, a suburb of Orlando.
 
The oft-injured Shuler had just one other Power 5 scholarship offer coming out of Lyman High, that being Indiana, and the Hoosiers had a pretty good sales pitch to use with him - a men's track program.
 
Shuler was one of the top prep discus throwers in Florida and considered playing two sports in college, something the Hoosiers were willing to consider. In the meantime, because his springs were occupied with track and field, he wasn't able to do the football camp circuit so a lot of top programs didn't know about him.
 
But one top program that did find out about him was West Virginia through former assistant coach Joe DeForest. Then, when Bruce Tall came aboard to coach the defensive line, one of the things he was seeking was some more length and the athletic 6-foot-4-inch Shuler fit what he was looking for.
 
West Virginia convinced Shuler he had a bright future as a college football player and offered him the opportunity to play some Big 12 football. After mulling things over with his father, Adam Sr., a former college football player at USF, they accepted WVU's offer.
 
Following a redshirt season in 2015, he appeared in all 13 games as a backup defensive end last season, including his first career start at Texas where he was credited with two tackles. His season totals consisted of 33 tackles, a sack and one forced fumble made in the season opener against Missouri.
 
Now, Old Man Shuler is being looked upon to be the man in Gibson's 3-3 stack defense, the guy who must fight through those double- and triple-teams to get to the quarterback.
 
Shuler admits he gets a big rush out of beating double teams.
 
"It looks better," he said recently. "Somebody who beats a man one-on-one, that's good, but it's one-on-one. When you beat two guys or three guys, that's all the glory."
 
Gibson and Tall will have no problem with Shuler getting some of the glory this year.
 
So far, signs point to that happening on a more frequent basis after the work Shuler has clocked in during fall camp.
 
He's been out there every day putting in the time and effort to get better - something he wasn't able to do much of last spring when he was periodically on the shelf with some of those same nagging injuries he once experienced in high school.
 
But that was then and this is now.
 
The 272-pounder has all but locked up one of the starting defensive end positions, and should likely be the first defensive lineman standing out on the field alongside sophomore defensive end Reese Donahue and senior Xavier Pegues in the opener against Virginia Tech, if the pre-camp depth chart holds up when the new one comes out early next week.
 
Of the defensive ends West Virginia has in the program right now, Shuler might have the highest ceiling. In the limited time he got on the field playing behind last year's starters Noble Nwachukwu and Christian Brown, Shuler demonstrated a knack for making plays.
 
He admits the two biggest things he needs to work on are hand placement and his finishing moves.
 
"I did a lot of bull rushing last year and I need to use my hands more with finishing moves and that's what I am working on," Shuler said. "It's not just the first move, but the counter move."
 
Shuler also concedes he still has a lot to learn about playing the game - which was driven home to him last year when he stepped out on the field for the first play at Texas in front of 98,673 fans.
 
West Virginia was able to hold on for a satisfying 24-20 victory and Shuler said the experience was extremely valuable.
 
"It hit me that I need to get right because (the Texas game) is going to be next year," he said. "I was coming from my redshirt year thinking I was doing what I am now but I wasn't using my hands and I wasn't getting into my gaps, so I am way more advanced than I was last year."
 
Experience is oftentimes overlooked and dismissed lightly, but Shuler now understands how vital it can be to a player.
 
There is only so much a player can learn by going up against his teammates each day in an empty stadium. Strange things sometimes happen when the lights come on and the stadium is full.
 
Players react differently, and oftentimes, unpredictably.
 
"There are a lot of different offensive linemen with different blocking techniques and people with a lot of different advantages so you learn to deal with all different types of offensive linemen," Shuler noted.
 
Now he knows. He also plans on letting his teammates know.
 
"I will take control if I need to," he said. "I will let them know and I tell them to let me know if they need to.
 
"I've got to take control and make sure everybody is doing things right," he added. "A lot of guys look up to me because we've got a young group, but I'm learning too, as well as everybody else."
 
It is a young and inexperienced group, indeed, somewhat mysterious and unknown.
 
Hopefully, Mr. Shuler and West Virginia's gang of unknowns can emerge from the darkness and make themselves more well-known this fall.