2022 Gophers Position Previews: Receivers and Tight Ends

The sixth season of the P.J. Fleck era at Minnesota begins Sept. 1 against Jerry Kill's New Mexico State. Ski-U-Blog will have previews of the Gophers' notable players in each position group. As in 2021, this series begins with the receivers and tight ends.

Likely Starters

At the college level, a supposed "50-50" ball is not actually that. It's a good bit more titled in the defensive back's direction. Over the last three years, according to Pro Football Focus, the national contested catch rate has sat at about 44 percent. If you take out running backs, tight ends, and anyone who isn't specifically a wide receiver, that rate does not improve. A receiver who can even make a jump ball a real 50-50 proposition is a real weapon.

Chris Autman-Bell, entering his sixth season in the program, is one of those weapons. Since 2020, Autman-Bell has succeeded on two-thirds of his contested catch opportunities. Only one returning FBS receiver with at least 20 contested targets — Thayer Thomas of NC State, at 70 percent — has been better over the last two years.

Despite missing time due to a preseason injury, Autman-Bell was the Gophers' leader in targets, catches, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns. After stints as a short-game receiver and as a deep threat, Autman-Bell stayed closer to the latter but was considered a top option at all levels of the field.

Autman-Bell has yet to earn more than an honorable mention for an all-conference team but should have the ability to do better if able to play a whole season. While lacking elite speed, he has shown often enough he can be more than just a long-armed jump ball target on the outside. His PFF grade last year was 6th among Big Ten receivers who are coming back for 2022. He'll be hoping a big year brings both accolades and a late-round selection in the NFL Draft next April.

Michael Brown-Stephens was one of the surprises of last season — not necessarily because he saw an increased role and took advantage of it, but because of the way that he went about it. Officially lifted at 5-foot-11, Brown-Stephens is the shortest of the Gophers' regular wideouts. But he was far from the team's favored slot receiver, and a quarter of his targets were at least 20 yards downfield. That included his one touchdown of the season, a 28-yard score against Nebraska:

While Brown-Stephens' speed will continue justifying his deployment as a deep threat, he seemingly will get the ball in a lot more places in 2022. P.J. Fleck complimented Brown-Stephens' versatility after this year's spring game, where he got plenty of targets as a receiver but also took the ball a few times from the backfield. That may hint at an expanded, more multi-purpose role under returning offensive playcaller Kirk Ciarrocca.

As a true freshman, Daniel Jackson's role was mostly confined to the sidelines, going for jump balls and not getting much work around the line of scrimmage. He lined up in the slot on just over a tenth of his snaps in 2020, per PFF.

In 2021, that completely changed. Jackson was in the slot over three-quarters of the time, and his average air yards per catch dropped from 11.4 to 5.0. No other Gopher was targeted as much behind the line of scrimmage or within 9 yards of it. With Brown-Stephens and Dylan Wright becoming the deep threats, Jackson took the short throws. As a result, he got to make some plays after the catch.

Through two years, Jackson has shown he can do two very different jobs. He's shown some route running savvy, especially on slants, and should be a versatile tool in the offense. It is noteworthy, though, that he missed the open practice on August 6 with a medical issue of unknown severity. He had evidently practiced the day before, so Jackson might not be a concern for the start of the season.

Brevyn Spann-Ford took a big step in 2021. Considered the Gophers' "receiving" tight end for a while, often coming onto the field flexed into the slot rather than next to the tackle, Spann-Ford improved his blocking while finally breaking out as a legitimate passing target. His 23 catches for 296 yards outdid previous career highs several times over.

Just over half of Spann-Ford's yardage came after the catch (151 YAC), largely owing to how often he got the ball near the line of scrimmage. If Minnesota was throwing near the goal line, Morgan was going to one of his wideouts, usually on a max-protect fade. Spann-Ford got the ball in some open spaces underneath but had to earn the yards he got.

He has the size to play the red zone target, should Ciarrocca want to get him the ball. Ciarrocca's last stint as offensive coordinator was marked by a refusal to use Minnesota's tight ends, but Spann-Ford's work under Sanford was too compelling to not get him involved.

His increased blocking acumen means he should still provide value when not getting the ball, too.

Spann-Ford was lined up in an H-back position here.

Spann-Ford is much more well-rounded than he was earlier in his Gophers career. If given the chance, and if he takes another big step, he could emerge as one of the Big Ten's best tight ends.

Key Backups

Calling Dylan Wright a backup is a bit of a misnomer, but Minnesota hardly ever uses more than three receivers, and Wright was definitely the fourth man last year. Even so, the former 4-star from Mesquite, Texas is one of the most intriguing players on the roster because of his physical traits: the height, the arm length, the leaping ability, his long strides. Last year, Autman-Bell said Wright had the "best receiver body [he'd] ever seen." The tools are all there.

The production so far has been fine, but it leaves the viewer wanting. Wright showed off his skill at making contested catches across multiple games, starting with the opener against Ohio State.

The rest of the year, Wright's playing time was sporadic. He missed just one game but played, according to PFF's data, just 120 snaps on passing plays. Brown-Stephens' snap count was more than double that mark; if not for injuries, Autman-Bell and Jackson's surely would have done the same. Wright never made more than two catches in a game after Week 2.

Even so, he made his mark here and there: a 39-yard catch at Colorado, a 36-yarder against Illinois, a 34-yarder at Indiana, a couple of big plays in the bowl game, and this impressive snag against Wisconsin:

Wright wasn't used much along the line of scrimmage but showed flashes of excellence in the intermediate and deep parts of the field. If he can take advantage of his elite athletic traits, and maybe offer a more well-rounded game, he could unlock his potential and become a top-of-the-line receiver.

Nick Kallerup saw a smattering of offensive snaps the last two seasons, and Jameson Geers made his Gophers debut at the Cactus Bowl in December. It would be unsurprising if both got regular playing time in 2022, as Fleck's Minnesota offenses regularly play out of 12 personnel (one running back, two tight ends). Kallerup, a former all-state tight end at Wayzata, has the advantages of seniority and greater experience, but Fleck noted Geers as a promising prospect during his redshirt season. Whoever gets more opportunities will likely be the better blocker, as the coaching staff will surely be looking for a successor to beloved pancake artist Ko Kieft.

Potential Rotation Options

Clay Geary filled in admirably toward the end of 2020, made a couple of plays in the 2021 spring game, and then was forced to miss 2021 with an injury. Because of that, he was able to return for yet another year. (Meanwhile, his former roommate Thomas Barber just joined Fleck's staff as a graduate assistant.)

Geary, the last player left from the short-lived Tracy Claeys era, has only managed six catches in as many years. If he sees playing time, it will be as a slot receiver. Whether that playing time is meaningful is uncertain; both under Ciarrocca and Mike Sanford Jr., the Gophers have kept their receiver rotation small. Brady Boyd (now at Texas Tech) had the fifth-most targets on the team among wideouts with four. There was a several-way tie for sixth place, and each player involved had zero.

Notables Unlikely to Contribute

Individually, Lemeke Brockington and Ike White probably won't see a lot of the ball in 2022. Still, one of the two could play a bit part.

Brockington was announced in the stadium as one of the Gophers' seemingly dozens of starters every week last year, but he never got on the field for one snap. He then missed the spring game, but Fleck highlighted him as an option in his subsequent press conference. As a prospect, Brockington's most apparent strengths were his speed and explosiveness. Those traits enabled him to blow by cornerbacks on go routes, but it also makes it hard to tell how polished a route runner he is. His feet look good in space on video, though, so there might be something there. He'll have less of a height advantage in the Big Ten than he did in high school, so Brockington may not find it as easy to pick the ball out of the air.

What high school video is available for White shows a quick route runner who can occasionally squirm out of a tight space once he has the ball in his hands. He didn't make a major impact in the spring game but started for the Maroon team, which could be interpreted as a small sign of trust.

The diminutive Quentin Redding took significant snaps at the Gophers' first open practice, but he figures to be more involved as a returner than as a receiver. The story is similar for Kristen Hoskins, a true freshman out of Alexandria, though Hoskins seems more likely to redshirt.

Spencer Alvarez, listed as a tackle prospect by 247Sports and standing 6-and-a-half-feet tall, seems like a prime candidate to act as a Kieft-esque sledgehammer in the future. But neither Alvarez nor Nathan Jones, both true freshmen, will probably factor into the 2022 season. We have yet to see 2020 signee Wyatt Schroeder on the field, either. The tight end position should have competition for snaps going into 2023, however, between those three and junior college arrival Frank Bierman.

We would be remiss, however, if we closed this post without acknowledging Samuel Pickerign, a sixth-year walk-on from Minnehaha Academy who has not played a single snap of college football. A four-time Academic All-Big Ten selection and a performer at halftime of the 2022 spring game, Pickerign has moved from quarterback to tight end for his last year of eligibility. This means he is more likely to see the field than he was at his old position. Is he in contention for meaningful playing time? Certainly not. But at the end of a blowout, we should all be on alert for the possibility of Pickerign's first snap.

An earlier version of this post featured target data that was incorrectly bucketed. That has been fixed.