WVU looks at balanced approach to fill holes at wide receiver

There is no easy way to replace the top two pass catchers on the West Virginia football team from a year ago. But that’s what wide receivers coach Tyron Carrier has been asked to do.

Gone from the roster is the leader in receptions in Daikiel Shorts and yardage and touchdowns in Shelton Gibson leaving some holes on the stat sheet. The duo combined for 106 catches for 1,845 yards and 13 touchdowns which translates to roughly half the production in all three categories.

While the statistical impact can be measured, one aspect that is tougher to gauge is the loss of two on the field leaders. Shorts was considered the “glue-guy,” for the wide receiver unit and helped hold them together leaving a large gap to fill in that department.

Luckily for Carrier, he feels he has the players to handle both fronts.

“I have a Daikiel, I have a Shelton. I’m very confident,” he said. “They left my room in a good place.”

But even so he believes it won’t just be one player to fill either instead several.

In the absence of Shorts, West Virginia is using a two-pronged attack in juniors Gary Jennings and David Sills. Jennings is entering his third year with the program and started to develop toward the end of last season and is now primed to take on a much larger bulk of the workload.

In addition to his on the field play, where Jennings has been a standout at inside wide receiver, he also has come what Carrier refers to as the “heartbeat,” of the position room. An extension of Carrier on the field, Jennings has tasked himself with leading the unit and is taking advantage of what that provides.

“He understands what I’m trying to present and put across to the whole room. It’s always good to have another guy that can see exactly what you’re talking about,” Carrier said.

The former quarterback turned wide receiver Sills left the West Virginia program to pursue his dream of throwing passes not catching them prior to last season. However, after realizing that his future would be on the other end of that connection re-enrolled in Morgantown in January.

Since that time he has developed a strong connection with the quarterbacks and has been “going through the roof,” according to Carrier when it comes to his development.

“They are both guys that can fill that role. They’re two big body guys that I’m really blessed to have both of them because they can really ball,” he said.

As for replacing the speedster Gibson on the outside, West Virginia has a near perfect replacement in sophomore Marcus Simms, who also excels at getting behind defenses and making plays down the field. Junior wide receiver Jovon Durante also has put together his best spring to date and is a candidate to watch for a breakout campaign now in his third year in the program.

And that’s not to mention some of the depth across the board as the Mountaineers will have the services of redshirt senior Ka’Raun White this fall after he missed the spring recovering from an injury. He is the leading returning wide receiver last year after posting 48 catches for 583 yards and 5 scores.

That alone is the biggest difference from a year ago so far is that these positions will be filled with more of a platoon type approach than relying on one or two players.

That means that the ball is likely to be spread around to various options in the passing game with others like junior Dominique Maiden, freshman Tevin Bush and redshirt junior Ricky Rogers all seeing work this spring.

“We have way more balance now, more guys and receivers that can go out and make plays,” Carrier said. “I see the ball being spread around a lot. We would be crazy not to.”