My first impression is that there is obviously more depth. – Utah co-offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick
SALT LAKE CITY — Delshawn McClellon can’t remember a season when the University of Utah’s receivers were not the subject of critics.
“Since I’ve been here, it’s always been a problem with the media,” the junior from California said after Monday’s practice, “and just everybody talking about the receivers. Every year it was the same thing, the same thing. I’m a leader now, so I just said, ‘Yo, we’ve got to step it up and be the guys.’ And we just took that and ran with it.”
In just three months, the wide receivers have gone from the most concerning to the most intriguing. A diverse group of new recruits has coalesced with the team’s veteran leadership creating more optimism than was expected so early in fall camp.
“I’m excited about talent,” said receivers coach Taylor Stubblefield. “But now we’ve got to do something with the talent to make that question mark into an exclamation mark.”
The talent includes an interesting group of freshman — Britain Covey, Raelon Singleton, Tyrone Smith, AJ Townsend and George Wilson — as well as junior college players like Kylie Fulks — and veteran leaders like McClellon, Kenneth Scott and Tim Patrick.
“It was good to see Tim Patrick back,” said Stubblefield after the first day of camp. “George Wilson made some big-time plays, Delshawn had a nice play and K-Scott is steady. So far, from what I can tell, it was a good day from all the guys.”
The performance of the wide receivers has remained consistently good, even after one of the most promising athletes, junior college transfer Cory Butler, was granted permission to spend the week playing cornerback instead of receiver.
“I asked to move back over there because it’s a little more natural,” Butler said. “Our receiving corps is pretty great. When I came, I just wanted to help them because they said that was the lesser hand that we had. I felt like they actually are good, so I went back to what I know best.”
While coaches haven’t committed to keeping Butler on the defense, he — and others — seem to believe the receivers are much stronger than anyone anticipated.
“My first impression is that there is obviously more depth,” said co-offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick. “Like Scotty (Kenneth Scott) didn’t even practice today and we looked just as good on offense today as we did yesterday. We have more depth than we had in spring. And after two days, the new guys have lived up to what we hoped they are. It’s only two days, and they still have a lot more to prove, but it’s clear that we have more talent and more depth, more speed, more everything. Spring ball was pretty sparse. It was tough to field a group out there. Now we’ve got guys going in with the third group who look like they could play this year.”
Stubblefield said the questions about the receivers are justified.
“Anytime you lose guys like Kaelin Clay and Dres Anderson, there are going to be some questions,” Stubblefield said. “We have a tremendous amount of talent in this group right now. I couldn’t be happier with the guys we have right now, really top to bottom. We have 14 guys in camp and I truly believe 12, maybe 13, legitimately have a shot at playing considerable snaps.”
The questions may continue, but they’ll shift to who should be taking the majority of those snaps. The one thing this year’s team does not have — at least not yet — is a playmaker like Anderson.
“There is nobody like Dres,” Roderick said of this year’s roster. “Dres had speed and length that comes along once in a while. It’s hard to find.”
He suggested the team could have athletes with abilities that matched Clay’s.
“Cory Butler, I don’t want to compare him to Kaelin yet, but as a wide receiver he does a lot of the same things well,” Roderick said. “I want to give credit to Bubba Poole because I think Bubba is one of our best players on this team. He’s kind of been forgotten about last year, but after two days, he’s clearly one of our better players and he’s going to have a big role.”
Butler moved ahead of Poole on the depth chart the same week that he moved to defense. Coaches said they’re keeping all options open when it comes to the talented junior.
Stubblefield said Poole still needs to improve his route running, but he is clearly more comfortable in the new position.
“Wide receiver is not a natural position for him,” Stubblefield said. “The one thing Bubba does well is that he catches the ball well. His route running still needs a lot of work, and that’s where we’re going to spend the majority of our time with him is in the route running so when we go up against a press (defensive back), he can win an individual route, and not just be a zone, find a zone type receiver. Bubba has the ability to make big plays when he gets the ball in his hands, so we’ve got to figure out two things — how we’re going to use him on offense and he’s got to do a better job of running routes.”
When asked what — or who — surprised them most, the players singled out former Timpview quarterback and 2014 Mr. Football Britain Covey. The 5-foot-8 freshman took to slot receiver like a fish to water.
“He had a really good day today,” Patrick said after the team’s first day of camp. “Nobody surprised me, but you could tell in summer training that he wasn’t just a quarterback. He was an athlete. So I wasn’t really surprised with what he accomplished by catching the ball, but I was just more surprised by him getting down the plays, catching the ball in traffic and him being able to block with how small he is. All-around, he just did good today.”
Poole, who switched from running back to slot receiver, also singled out Covey.
“He’s made a lot of plays,” Poole said after Friday’s practice. “He’s really stepping up. If anything, he’d be my surprise guy with how well he understands the position.”
Stubblefield praised Covey saying he has “great savvy” and called Butler “a special kid.”
The coach is also grateful to have some veteran talent on the field with those promising, but unproven young players.
Patrick is coming back from an injury suffered last year in the team’s loss to Oregon, but coaches were impressed with how he looked through four days of practices.
“It’s the first time he’s done the amount of work that he’s done,” Stubblefield said. “And to see the way that he moved coming off of the injury he had, that was surprising.”
Patrick said he feels completely healed, but not completely recovered.
“I’m 100 percent, but skill-wise, I’m not where I need to be honestly,” he said. “It was my first time being out there with the full team, offense and defense, catching little (passes) and it felt great. …It’s a blessing.”
He was impressed with the team’s new talent and excited about the opportunity to prove naysayers wrong.
“I feel like this training camp is better than last year,” he said. “Everybody is going hard, working hard every day to get a spot on the roster.” He even understands the frustration some fans may have with the team’s receivers.
“For me, definitely, I feel like some of the losses from last year were on us a little bit,” he said. “We’re trying to make sure this year, it has nothing to do with us. Of course we see the stuff that’s on social media. …And we got a lot of the flak last year for not catching the balls or not making the plays, so I’m taking it and I’m going to let all the other receivers know, we need to step up, we just need to play our game.”
The difference is in the details, he said.
“I felt like last year we were kind of like robots out there,” Patrick said. “We were trying to make the catch and not really do much else. This year we need to make plays, yardage after catches, be all-around receivers.” The receivers are looking forward to being key components to the team’s success instead of the reasons for a heartbreaking loss.
“We’re extremely excited,” McClellon said of the upcoming season. “We can’t wait to show everybody that we’re not the same receiving corps that they thought we were.”
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