Last year was one of IU football’s most efficient seasons passing the ball in program history.
The Hoosiers totaled more than 300 passing yards per game in 2019 for the first time in six seasons, but a large sum of their production on the receiving end won’t be with the team next year. Donavan Hale and Nick Westbrook – who combined for 64 catches, 945 yards and eight touchdowns last season – were fifth-year seniors and are all out eligibility.
Without the team’s two veteran, big-bodied playmakers on the outside, IU’s receivers will be challenged entering the 2020 season in terms of both depth and leadership. While incoming seniors Ty Fryfogle and Whop Philyor won’t have much trouble carrying the weight on the field, wide receivers coach Grant Heard is counting on a few of his guys to lead by example.
“Hopefully somebody in that room, and I would love it to be Whop or Ty, somebody in that room’s got to step up and fill those roles that Nick left and Donovan left,” Heard said in a Zoom conference this week. “I don’t truly believe that just because you’re a senior, you’re a leader. Leaders can be anybody.”
Heard said he’s already summoned Fryfogle and Philyor to lead some of the wide receiver room’s Zoom sessions during the pandemic, but it’s when they ultimately get back to campus and start planning for the upcoming season that they’ll really start to be tested.
Excluding tight end Peyton Hendershot, Fryfogle and Philyor were IU’s lead pass-catchers last season. As much as Heard would like to think they’ll be as effective on the field in 2020, he wants to make sure his returning receivers are prepared when opposing defenses try to neutralize Philyor.
“If I was playing against us right now, I’d sit there like, ‘Let’s try to take Whop away, he’s one of their main guys,’” Heard said. “Now I’m putting more pressure on him to learn more defenses, what they’re trying to do to take him away, take certain plays away, why we’re calling certain stuff just to open his mind up to be a more well-rounded football player.”
Those situations are just about inevitable with a receiver as dynamic as Philyor. Head coach Tom Allen and his coaching staff already have to get creative to get him touches as it is, but it’s a whole other obstacle when defenses start to game-plan around Philyor. For Heard, it's just an opportunity for the younger receivers to make an impact.
“I take it as a challenge: They take him away, somebody else has to step up,” Heard said. “I think we have enough people in our room now and on our offense to take the load.”
After Philyor and Fryfogle, the team’s next-most experienced returning receiver is redshirt sophomore Miles Marshall. Heard knows some of his underclassmen will have to adjust to the increased playing time, but there’s one guy he’s particularly excited to see line up this fall.
While sophomore David Ellis played running back at Chippewa Valley High School in Michigan, his role on offense was much less defined as a freshman with the Hoosiers. He caught some passes and ran the ball out of the backfield a few times, but it was never clear if Ellis was a halfback or receiver. A concrete role of his, however, was as kick-off returner.
Heard admitted he didn’t want to overwhelm Ellis during his first season at the next level, and it may have been worth the wait. In the program’s only four spring practices this past March, Ellis turned heads as a facet of IU’s second offensive system in as many years.
“He showed a lot – stuff that we knew he could do, but we had never exposed it to him last year because he couldn’t handle it,” Heard said. “Now he’s comfortable with what we’re doing and now we’re able to expand on his role, and I think he’s going to have a big-time year this year.”
----
• Talk about it inside The Hoops Forum or The Football Forum
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Follow us on Twitter: @IndianaRivals
• Like us on Facebook.
