One of the stories of spring practice so far has been the transition to slot receiver for Fenley Graham. He came into the program as a fast and elusive return guy, though he’s yet to actually field a punt or kick. Now, UF is counting on him to be the sole fast and elusive slot receiver because Florida otherwise doesn’t have one on the roster.
This is a strange place for the Gators to be since dynamic receivers are one of the state’s most distinctive products on the national recruiting stage. Nevertheless, Billy Napier noted this week that the team was “a little short” at receiver and switched Graham’s position as a result.
The comment about being “a little short” does require some context. UF has eight scholarship receivers listed on the spring roster and has a ninth enrolling later this year in Caleb Douglas. Fellow 2022 signee Arlis Boardingham is a flex TE/WR kind of player who could start out more on the receiver side of things. You’d like to see an even ten, which is a pretty standard number and exactly how many scholarship receivers UF had in every season under Mullen, but they’re not far off. One might say, they were merely a little short.
Graham making ten solves that numeric problem, but there is a matter of needing contributors. Rarely can you count on true freshmen to make an immediate impact, especially ones that don’t participate in spring ball. So, Douglas and maybe Boardingham count towards depth and the positional pipeline but aren’t guys you would expect to see near the top of the depth chart. Also, Jordan Pouncey has never played much outside special teams in his five years at Texas and Florida, so that will probably continue in this, his sixth season of college. He hasn’t even gotten some of the votes of confidence from teammates that the long-patient Rick Wells did before finally earning a rotation spot in his sixth season.
So eliminating those three means we’re really looking at seven potential contributors on the spring roster. Except, Trent Whittemore has been limited by injury this spring as has too often happened in his career. So really, it’s more like six real possibilities among the returning wideouts. Not only that, but Whittemore is the only one of those six who has spent much time in the slot during live games. No wonder the coaches had Graham make the move.
The Gators ended up here for exactly the reason you’d guess: they just didn’t sign many fast and elusive slot types in the last four years.
Quick twitch speed and height aren’t perfectly correlated, but a guy who’s 6’5″ is just not going to have moves like Kadarius Toney. The taller a player is, the less likely he is to be able to break some ankles. You don’t have to do that to be effective in the slot; Whittemore is just fine there as a sure handed 6’4″ target. However teams generally put those shifty guys in the slot because they put pressure on defenses by being able to slip out of tight spaces.
The shortest receiver Mullen signed was probably Jacob Copeland at 6’0″. He’s not a slot guy, though, and played outside his entire time in Gainesville. The recruiting sites listed 2019 signee Dionte Marks at 5’11”, and he was more of your classic slot receiver. He either was undersold in high school or grew three inches in a year because UF listed him a 6’2″. Daejon Reynolds is listed at 6’2″, and every other receiver signee was 6’3″ or taller.
The Gators have real speed among the tall trees, as Xzavier Henderson and Ja’Markis Weston are blazing fast in straight-line performance. However once Marks entered the transfer portal in summer of 2020, UF was left with no one with both speed and the ability to make guys miss outside of the soon-to-be-drafted Toney.
When asked about the ever increasing size at receiver on the February signing day in 2020, Mullen acknowledged that he didn’t have any classic slot receivers behind Toney. He tried to highlight the size mismatches that his new receivers, including 6’5″ transfer Justin Shorter, would have, but he flat-out stated that he’d need to sign someone for the slot in the next cycle.
Mullen struck out on that position, though, signing only a pair of taller outside guys in Reynolds and Marcus Burke. He seemed to realize that his team was lagging in speed all over, as it was a major factor in the 2022 class he was building prior to his dismissal. For a few examples, wide receiver commits Isaiah Bond and Jayden Gibson ran track in high school, and defensive back Jamarrien Burt reportedly got an offer from UF after putting up an impressive 40 time at a camp last June. All three decommitted after Mullen’s firing, with Bond going to Alabama and the other two going to Oklahoma.
All of this adds up to needing the return specialist who has yet to actually return anything becoming the big hope for the slot position. UF could still use some portal help in the slot, between Whittemore’s bad injury luck and Graham having not played receiver since high school. Graham himself missed time in 2020 to injury, so durability is a question with both of those players.
Napier’s offense leaning on formations with two receivers, two tight ends, and one running back lessens the impact of being a little short at wideout. However it’s just not tenable to go the whole year without ever using a third receiver, so one way or another there needs to be an answer in the slot.