Unconcerned With Past Performances, Stubblefield Building WR Expectations
Remember that spring depth chart that Penn State released last weekend? Well, forget it – at least the part that delineated the supposed pecking order at the three wide receiver spots. As receivers coach Taylor Stubblefield explained Wednesday morning, that document is not a reflection of anything that’s happened to date, nor is it a prediction of anything that’s likely to happen when the Nittany Lions return to the practice field.
“I don’t even think it was pencil that it was written in,” Stubblefield said. “It might have been in watercolor ink, something that can possibly disappear.”
The spring depth chart featured Jahan Dotson, Daniel George and T.J. Jones as the three starters. Dotson’s selection was an obvious choice given his status as the only proven veteran in the Nittany Lions’ 2020 receiver group, but the rest of it was pure conjecture given how little on-field work the wideouts have had a chance to engage in.
“I told my guys, when that depth chart comes out, it is ever-changing,” Stubblefield said. “I told the guys at the top, do not sit there and beat your chest and be like, hey, I made it. And if you’re a third- or fourth-string guy right now, don’t put your head down and say, dang, I don’t have a chance. Because we didn’t have spring ball, and we have a room full of young guys. Some of it [was aimed at] how we structure who’s at X, who’s at Z, a little bit of that. But it’s going to be ever-changing right now. And I hope every single one of them is motivated to either keep it where it’s at or change it.”
A big part of the uncertainty at wideout has to do with the youth of the group. While Dotson and Cam Sullivan-Brown are all juniors, and George is a redshirt sophomore, the wide receiver room is awash in freshmen. There will be six freshman-eligible scholarship players in camp when Penn State resumes practicing. Four of those players – Jones, John Dunmore, KeAndre Lambert-Smith and Jaden Dottin – were set to take part in spring practice before the coronavirus pandemic shut everything down.
Stubblefield himself is new to Penn State, having been hired in January following Gerad Parker’s decision to leave for West Virginia. But he’s been getting to know his personnel and said he’s been impressed with what he’s seen from his freshmen.
Jones and Dunmore didn’t get onto the field last year, but the two redshirt freshmen will likely be a big part of whatever comes next for Penn State’s receiver corps. “They’re Florida cats, they like to run, that’s what they’re known for – being out there in the sunny weather, playing football year-round,” Stubblefield said. “You can tell when we have our Zoom meetings, they’re either just getting done getting a workout in or getting ready to get a workout in. They’re still fairly young, and we’re in a new offense, so [it’s a matter of] making sure they’re doing more than just what we’re allowed to do, making sure they’re ready to go with what to do, so that when we get to fall camp, we’re going more into the technique side, more into how to get things done, how do it, not what to do. We want to be past that stage. I’ve been challenging all the guys, but specifically T.J. and J.D., to make sure they come in here prepared to know what to do so that we can work out all the kinks on how to do it.”
Lambert-Smith and Dottin are true freshmen who enrolled in Penn State’s spring semester in the hope of accelerating their careers. The spring sports shutdown put a halt to their acclimation process, but Stubblefield said they still got something out of the decision to arrive in January.
“You enroll early to try to get a head start, and they have done that,” he said. “They’ve been able to do that in the weight room, to try to change their bodies with our strength and conditioning staff. They do a phenomenal job with them, and you can see already the transformation they’re having with their bodies. On top of that, they’ve been able to bond with some of the guys. When you come in as a new guy, you’ve got to acclimate to the subculture of the room, and you have to bond with the other guys. They’ve been able to do that.
“I’m excited to see what Dottin brings to the table. When you talk to him off the field, he’s kind of calm, very collected. I’m excited to see him flip that switch on when he gets on the field, have a little dog [mentality] come out of him. KeAndre, he wants it. He has something different in him. There might be some sort of different motivation for him. You can tell he wants it, and he’s willing to put the work in to reach that goal. We talk about the process. He wants the process. He wants the hard stuff, he wants to get coached. He has the mentality of hating to lose, which is what I love. Everybody loves to win, but who hates to lose? … They’ve both been doing a great job, and I’m excited to see what they’re going to do come this fall camp.”
The youth of the room is one of the reasons why Stubblefield isn’t putting too much stock in what happened in the 2018 and ’19, seasons in which the receivers struggled with dropped passes and an overall decline in productivity. After leading the Big Ten in passing offense in 2017, the Lions fell to seventh the following year and eighth last fall. K.J. Hamler led the team in receptions each of the past two seasons, but now he’s off to the NFL, leaving behind a receiver corps in which only one player – Dotson – has amassed more than a dozen career catches. The receivers have frequently been cited as Penn State’s biggest question mark, but as far as Stubblefield is concerned, their past difficulties aren’t relevant to what the team wants to do going forward.
“The players in the room right now, they didn’t really play last year,” he said. “I do think a lot of the attention to this room as underachieving – a lot of these guys in the room didn’t play. Whatever is said about last year’s team, which had a phenomenal year, this is 2020, and we have guys in this room who need to be ready to take the next step in their careers and just produce, flat-out produce. I’m not talking to J.D. and saying, ‘J.D., your route against Michigan really wasn’t [right].’ I’m not saying that to him because he didn’t play. There are a lot of young guys, after being here a year, two years, they have to be ready to make a big play.”