UMass Season Preview | Wide Receiver
A blend of UMass vets and portal additions make for an exciting receiver room in Amherst this fall.
UMass is breaking in many new faces at the skill positions on offense this year.
There are new faces in the receivers room to be sure, but that’s one room the Minutemen know they’ll be able to lean on some familiar ones this season.
Redshirt junior receiver T.Y. Harding is one of the first names mentioned when talking about a potentially explosive offense in Amherst this fall.
Harding was recently named to the watch list for the Hornung Award, which is annually given to the nation’s most versatile player. The 5-foot-9, 180-pounder caught 20 passes for 331 yards and five touchdowns a year ago and was also a force on special teams.
The Minutemen clearly plan to make the Cambridge, Mass., native a featured part of their offense this fall.
“T.Y.'s special,” head coach Joe Harasymiak said during MAC Football Media Day. “He's a little bit like those slot guys I've seen in the Big 10 that are just so hard to cover if you want to go man-to-man.
“He's just a guy that can be elusive. He's great in the return game also, but I think once he gets the ball in his hands, that ability to make you miss is kind of his best category.”
Harding has the speed to be one of the fastest players on the field and because of that is always a threat to score, whether it’s catching passes or catching punts.
Fellow redshirt junior Jacquon Gibson is going to be right there with Harding leading the room. The 5-foot-11, 195-pounder from North Carolina caught 23 passes for 270 yards last year, including a six-catch, 72-yard performance against Toledo.
Like Harding, Gibson possesses the ability to break one at any time.
Those two vets of UMass will be joined by a trio of new faces in Amherst, but college football vets.
Redshirt senior Jake McConnachie and junior Tyree Kelly transferred from Pitt and USF, respectively, and participated in spring practice. Donnie Gray was a graduate transfer from Northwestern, who just arrived in Amherst this summer.
All three are expected to make impacts alongside Harding and Gibson and all three complement that dynamic duo.
They are “Get Off The Bus” guys, meaning they’re the kind of guys who provide an intimidating presence and the ones you’d like to get off the bus first.
McConnachie (6-5, 215), Kelly (6-3, 205) and Gray (6-2, 210) will bring size and the ability to be threats on the outside.
If McConnachie and Kelly make contested catches on the field this fall the way they have this offseason, that will give UMass’ offense another dimension.
Being here for the spring definitely helped McConnachie and Kelly, but Gray’s experience playing in Mike Bajakian’s offense at Northwestern means his learning curve was almost non-existent.
Gray proved he could play multiple different spots in the offense the day he arrived and could be one of the most important portal additions for the Minutemen this season.
Redshirt freshman Kenyon Massey has shown enough flashes to be considered a promising prospect in the slot while there are big expectations for true freshmen Jenoa Alford and Elijah Pedro during their careers at UMass.
Redshirt freshman Kezion Dia-Johnson will have an opportunity to prove he belongs in the rotation while redshirt junior Dallas Elliott has been one of the most consistent playmakers during the media’s practice viewing sessions.
First-year receivers coach Jordan Hogan is big on attention to detail. His players know they’ll be held accountable, but they also know the reason for that is because he has high expectations for them and he’s been where they’re trying to go, the NFL, having spent the last two seasons on the San Francisco 49ers staff.
Perhaps every player in the receiver room feels they’ve been under-utilized throughout their collegiate careers. That’s a good thing because they’re going to have an opportunity to prove that and at least some of them will leave this season not feeling that way anymore.
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Donnie Gray is that big? I heard he was a speedster. He’s big and a speedster?
Jake could help us if we want to run a 2 tight end set.