Shanna Rose I WV Sports Chat
MORGANTOWN, W.Va.- West Virginia wide receivers coach Ryan Garrett likes what he’s seeing from his group in fall camp, but he’s quick to point out that there’s still plenty of work to do.
“I think it’s coming together pretty good,” Garrett said. “The big thing for us… we’re asking them every day of fall camp to go out there and play as hard as they can for two hours.”
With a mix of returning players, spring additions, and newcomers, Garrett is stressing one consistent standard.
“The expectation is the same for all of them,” he said. “It’s a cool situation to be in where we don’t have any solidified starters.”
Every practice is a battle for playing time, and the receivers know it.
“Every day these guys go out there, in their mind they’re competing to play… and that’s the reality of it,” Garrett said. “We’re watching and grading everything.”
One player who has caught the wide receivers coach’s attention early is redshirt senior Jaden Bray.
“He’s got a ton of ability,” Garrett said. “ I think my job is just to coach him and guide him and tell him what we’re looking for and how to get there and his job is to get it out of himself. And to his credit, he’s done a great job of that. He’s playing really, really hard right now. He’s productive and he’s put himself in a really good position. But he knows that we believe in him and he knows the expectation that we have of everybody in that room. So he’s done a good job of buying in and giving us what we want.”
Garrett’s outside receivers, the X and Z positions, are being pushed to learn every spot in the offense.
“They’re expected to know all five of our skill positions,” he explained. “We’re going to change personnel groupings and those guys know that they need to be able to play slot. They need to be able to play wide out. And their best ability is going to be availability and knowing what they’re doing, right. So if they want to be in there when we go 10 personnel, if we go zero personnel, it’s going to help them to know how to play every single position.”
Effort without the ball is just as important, especially with downfield blocking.
“The biggest thing is just straining,” the Hendersonville, N.C. native said. “I mean, and that goes for every position, but we’re going to play with the ball and without the ball the same way. And that’s what our guys are starting to understand, but that’s what they need to understand is there’s going to be times when you catch a slant route and you’re going to take it upfield and you’re going to want to know that that receiver on the other side of the field is busting his butt to go get a block for you.
“There’s going to be times when a running back breaks one out, and they’re relying on us to be downfield finishing for them. So a big thing we’re coaching right now is strain. We’ll work. We spend five, ten minutes every day working perimeter blocking. But ultimately, the guys that we recruit here are not recruited to be blockers. They’re recruited to go stretch the field and make plays downfield. I think the biggest asset you can have for being a great perimeter blocker is your willingness to do that.”
Keeping fresh legs in the rotation is part of the plan to wear down opposing corners.
“He might be a, 4-3-40 guy when he’s fresh, but when he’s exhausted, he might be a 4-7 guy, right? And if we can keep fresh legs in there, then our guys are going to go buy them,” Garrett said. “So our guys understand that. They know that they need to be ready when they get their opportunity.”
Garrett even drills his receivers on the finer details, like adjusting to left-handed quarterbacks.
“So the ball actually spins the opposite way when a lefty’s throwing it,” he said. “But that’s something we’ve done this offseason is we have five jugs machines that shoot balls. So those machines, we turned them this winter. We switched them to where that ball is coming out. from a left handed throw. Now we can go back and forth, ’cause obviously we have some right handed quarterbacks as well. But I do want those receivers to be comfortable seeing that ball spinning the other way. I think for them, that’s the only difference, is seeing it spin.”
Ultimately, success for the Mountaineers will come down to route precision and finishing plays.
“The fastest point of my route should be when I change direction coming out of my break,” Garrett said. “ I think guys that can do that, that can shift their weight and know when to accelerate to get open. That’s a big thing to create separation.”
Garrett expects his wide outs to be engaged the entire possession.
“If you don’t have the ball, go finish,” he said.
Photo Credit: WVU Athletics
