BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — It’s no secret that WKU Football will be sporting a new-look offense in 2021. It’s also no secret what the Hilltoppers’ wide receivers are focused on as the team rolls into second week of fall camp: Making big plays.
“Something I talk to our guys about all the time is if you look at it statistically, yards per play is a big determiner of W’s,” assistant coach Josh Crawford said. “Both teams can have a lot of yards of offense, but statistically the team that has the greatest yards per play is typically the team that will come out and win.
“Our success Saturday-in and Saturday-out and in our practices day-in and day-out is really going to be judged about how well we do making big plays on the outside.”
Wide receiver Craig Burt, Jr. echoed that sentiment: “Coach Crawford every day he preaches to make the big play. The offense is going to go how we go; if we make big plays, the offense is going to go. It’s really just keying in on the small things, making sure we go high-point the ball and catch everything that’s possible. Of course sometimes the defense is going to have good plays in there, but next-play mentality, and when we have another chance, make the play.”
Crawford – who comes from a coaching background of working with some of the best high school offenses in the state of Georgia over the past decade – is tasked with working with the outside receivers, while Bryan Ellis is coaching the inside receivers. There are 18 total wideouts on the 2021 WKU roster, with a good mix of returners and newcomers, all of which hope to put their talent on display this fall in offensive coordinator Zach Kittley’s offense.
A trio of incoming transfers who came from Houston Baptist with Kittley and quarterback Bailey Zappe – Jerreth Sterns, Josh Sterns and Ben Ratzlaff – might seemingly have a leg-up on the ins and outs of the offensive scheme, but they say it has been a group effort getting each other ready to roll.
“A lot of the dudes are kind of older and they’ve played a lot of college football,” Jerreth explained. “They kind of just hit us up like about the concepts, but they actually help us on how to run the routes. There are things that we didn’t know and they know, and things that we know that they didn’t know. So I think the knowledge from both sides kind of just helps everybody get better honestly.”
The wide receiver group is another deep one. There are experienced returners in Burt, Malachi Corley, Dalvin Smith, Dakota Thomas, Mitchell Tinsley and Dayton Wade. And they’re now joined by the HBU transfers plus other newcomers Kendall Abdur-Rahman, Daewood Davis, B.K. Smith and DeAngelo Wilson.
Kittley dialed up 215 pass attempts for Zappe in HBU’s four 2021 contests (54 per game), so there will likely be a lot of targets to go around. In Fall Camp, the coaches are challenging the players to step up and earn those targets, and it’s making for lots of healthy competition between teammates.
“This is something that I’ve told these guys from Day 1, and I always use the cheetah and the gazelle analogy,” Crawford said. “The great thing about our room is we’ve got depth, so on a daily basis it requires each one of them to come out on this field and give their best. Because if you come out here and you don’t have a great day, there’s a guy who’s right behind you that’s capable.”
However the personnel pans out for the Hilltoppers, know that they’ll be operating at one speed: Fast.
Davis – a redshirt junior transfer from Oregon – may just be the fastest player on the team, and a main selling point of him coming to WKU was the high-tempo style of play, which he thinks will be a weapon for the offense this year.
“I feel our tempo is going to help us the most in getting big plays, because as soon as a play’s gone, we can get back on the ball and we can go,” Davis said. “The defense isn’t going to be ready and that’s a chunk shot right there. We just gotta keep practicing it and keep getting better at it.”
Also take the word of Jerreth, who has three years of experience playing in Kittley’s system: “We like to push the ball, push the tempo a lot. We’ll do whatever it takes to score a lot of points, as long as it’s fast.”How to Follow the Hilltoppers: For complete information on WKU Hilltopper Football, follow the program via social media @WKUFootball on Twitter and Facebook.
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