Indiana wide receivers Whop Philyor, Nick Westbrook and Ty Fryfogle all made obvious mistakes during Indiana's season-opening win against Ball State. The corps has a plan moving forward to ensure those mistakes don't create limitations for the Hoosier offense.
Whop Philyor was throwing around a football shortly before Indiana’s noon kickoff against Ball State on Saturday in Indianapolis, and toward the end of his warmup, he worked on one situation in particular.
He would turn away from the passer and asked for the ball to be thrown above his head. Once the ball reached the level he anticipated, he would take a step or two forward, jump and twist his body into position to reach up and secure the ball well above his head, sometime with one hand, usually with two.
He didn’t drop one of those 10-to-15 reps.
But when the time came during the second quarter for Philyor to bring down a ball in that exact scenario, he let it slip through his outreached hands in the endzone. He then dropped another pass during the drive in Ball State territory, and Indiana settled for a Logan Justus’ second field goal of the game.
Those drops, as well as drops from Nick Westbrook and others, led to one of the Hoosiers’ most glaring areas in need of improvement as they move ahead to Week Two against Eastern Illinois.
“Nick made some great plays,” IU offensive coordinator Kalen DeBoer said Monday. “He’d be the first to say he missed the big one, but we just talk about making the first play before making the second. Make the easy catch.”
Westbrook was, in fact, the first to note that he missed the second of two long passes from freshman quarterback Mike Penix when he talked ot the media after the season-opening win. He said he was “mad” that he allowed a deep pass along the hashmarks to bounce off his chest, despite having caught a 75-yard touchdown pass earlier in the game.
He said he hadn’t dropped a pass like that since high school, and that was the only time he can remember dropping such an easy ball during a game. This, after all, comes from a receiver who burst onto the scene during his freshman season in 2015 with a strong catch that resulted in a touchdown during the New Era Pinstripe Bowl.
“It’s just focusing, and I think a lot of it is just the first game,” Westbrook said Saturday after the game. “Everything’s coming a little bit faster, and we just kind of need to slow down as a receiver group and as an offense in total.”
It wasn’t that the receiving corps was unproductive. Westbrook finished with three catches for 103 yards, Philyor had six catches for 66 yards, Ty Fryfogle ended the game with six catches for 41 yards and Donavan Hale surprisingly finished with just one catch for 16 yards. The running backs and tight ends combined for eight catches and 97 yards.
With Penix announced as the new starting quarterback, though, there was an expectation that the receiving talent would explode with the spark of Penix’s arm, instead of at times feeling limited with the scheme or restriction sometimes felt with Peyton Ramsey at quarterback.
DeBoer said that he’s not concerned about the play-making ability of his wideouts, though, and that he saw enough from them in the season opener to trust them moving forward.
“I look at the guys that it happened to and I believe in those guys,” DeBoer said. “I’ve seen them, in practice, make a lot of catches. We can maybe make the throws just a little bit better, but even that said, the guys given those opportunities are going to make those plays.”
DeBoer pointed to the second drop by Philyor during the drive that he dropped a touchdown pass. Philyor dropped a pass that would have set the Hoosiers up for a first down and, potentially, an eventual touchdown. Later in the game, though, Philyor was targeted on the exact same play, experienced tougher coverage and brought the pass in.
Instead of focusing on the drops, DeBoer is watching for those plays, where his receivers redeemed themselves and made plays that couldn’t erase the drops from the memories of spectators.
Westbrook and the receivers will ensure the drops don’t become a recurring issue that limits the Indiana offense that could reach heights higher than most recent seasons.
“We’re going to get on the jugs machine,” Westbrook said about himself and the wide receivers. “I read something in a book like, ‘Five good things make up for one bad thing.’ So for all the drops, we’ll just make five catches in a row on the jugs machine.”
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