Mississippi State saw four of its wide receivers play 370 or more snaps last season (Kevin Coleman, Kelly Akharaiyi, Jordan Mosley and Mario Craver). Does the rotation expand to five or does it continue to stick at four? Personally, I see it expanding, and if so, here are my five candidates:
WR: Jordan Mosley OR Ayden Williams
WR: Brenen Thompson
SWR: Anthony Evans / Ricky Johnson
Tough to leave off Markus Allen, but these five players make the most sense to me. Evans plays the Kevin Coleman role (over 85% slot snaps). Thompson, Mosley and Williams are the three primary outside options (85-95% outside) with Johnson being a true inside-out option (the primary backup in the slot who will also receive plenty of perimeter snaps).
My three personal favorites in this group are Evans, Williams and Johnson, but I don’t know that they’ll be the top three necessarily. Could see Williams pushing for a starting job over Mosley and maybe even Johnson jumping him for the WR4 role. Should be an interesting fall camp for a WR position that saw a *complete* overhaul this offseason.
More: Evans sees most consistent targets/usage and is viewed as WR1. Thompson and Williams are two of the most explosive downfield playmakers with higher YPC (16-17+ yards). Mosley and Johnson are three-level guys. Should be a much more balanced target share (don’t think Evans exceeds a 30% share like Coleman did last year with the next highest WR only getting an 11.9% share). Don’t know if there will be more 12 or even some 21 personnel looks that cut into the amount of 3WR sets that we see from them though.
WR: Jordan Mosley OR Ayden Williams
WR: Brenen Thompson
SWR: Anthony Evans / Ricky Johnson
Tough to leave off Markus Allen, but these five players make the most sense to me. Evans plays the Kevin Coleman role (over 85% slot snaps). Thompson, Mosley and Williams are the three primary outside options (85-95% outside) with Johnson being a true inside-out option (the primary backup in the slot who will also receive plenty of perimeter snaps).
My three personal favorites in this group are Evans, Williams and Johnson, but I don’t know that they’ll be the top three necessarily. Could see Williams pushing for a starting job over Mosley and maybe even Johnson jumping him for the WR4 role. Should be an interesting fall camp for a WR position that saw a *complete* overhaul this offseason.
More: Evans sees most consistent targets/usage and is viewed as WR1. Thompson and Williams are two of the most explosive downfield playmakers with higher YPC (16-17+ yards). Mosley and Johnson are three-level guys. Should be a much more balanced target share (don’t think Evans exceeds a 30% share like Coleman did last year with the next highest WR only getting an 11.9% share). Don’t know if there will be more 12 or even some 21 personnel looks that cut into the amount of 3WR sets that we see from them though.
