2023 Gophers Position Previews: Receivers and Tight Ends

If you can believe it, football is almost here. Seriously. For the third year running, Ski-U-Blog will have previews of every position group entering Minnesota's season. Here is the first preview, concerning the pass-catchers.

Likely Starters

In recent years, P.J. Fleck has become more and more active in the transfer market. This season, the wide receiver position reflects that as much as almost any other on the team. Dylan Wright and Michael Brown-Stephens have been displaced in the starting lineup by transfers, which also led to the departure of a potential future starter in Ike White. For all the handwringing from coaches and college football media about players leaving, Minnesota's staff showed this offseason that those coaches are often just as willing to give up on players as the players are accused of being quick to give up on their teams.

The churn, however cynical it may be, has produced results for the Gophers in the past: Chris Williamson, Nyles Pinckney, and Chuck Filiaga are just a handful of the program's recent successful transfers. Going into 2023, it's hard to say that this tactic has not improved the receiver room.

The most exciting transfer is Elijah Spencer. I'm uncertain that Spencer will technically be a starter, but he will receive starter-level snaps and could be just as vital as those who happen to be on the field for the first play of each game. The former Charlotte 49er finished 5th in Conference-USA in receiving yards in 2022, and spring game performance indicated this wasn't a fluke. He was Athan Kaliakmanis' top target, accumulating more than 100 yards and scoring a touchdown.

It is somewhat hard to evaluate Spencer's work at Charlotte when his team's quarterback and offensive line play were so suspect, but he still made plays. He drew a couple of pass interference calls against South Carolina, and in that game and the one versus Maryland, he demonstrated he knew how to get open on a scramble drill.

What's enticing about Spencer is his suddenness. He has impressive short-area quickness and footwork, which means he has a great release off the line and is adept at making space for himself on short routes.

That skillset often suits a slot receiver, but Spencer mostly played out wide for the 49ers. Being 6-foot-2 gives him an additional advantage against defensive backs and makes him an effective jump-ball target. Pro Football Focus gives him a career contested catch rate of 59 percent, well above the national average (typically in the mid-40s). Of course, as much as Spencer's size helps, so does a little bit of flash.

Spencer arrives two years of eligibility and could shine in his tenure as a Gopher.

On the inside, Corey Crooms Jr. joins as a fifth-year transfer from Western Michigan. The Broncos were heavily reliant on running back Sean Tyler (whom we'll discuss soon), and opponents had to counter. When defenders over the middle cheated up, that meant Crooms had room to go to work.

While not exclusively a short- and intermediate-range weapon, that seems most befitting of his profile, especially next to the other regular receivers on Minnesota's roster. He is quick and elusive with the ball in his hands, and his height (officially 6 feet, but he doesn't play that tall) makes him less threatening on long or contested passes. He can specialize as a slot receiver and make an impact.

Of the returning receivers, Daniel Jackson is the one with the best chance to be a difference-maker and perhaps make an all-conference team. Jackson missed the first couple games of 2022 but had the best season of his college career when he returned from his injury. His 557 yards and five touchdowns led all Gophers.

The season before, Jackson was strictly a slot receiver, making catches underneath and trying to pick up extra yards on his own. Last season, though, he returned to a role more resembling that of his freshman year, getting targets in the intermediate and deep parts of the field. Jackson excelled.

Jackson is a versatile player who can do work in the short game and deep, go up for jump balls and turn short passes into medium to long gains. It feels like he can find a higher ceiling in his senior year. New playcaller Matt Simon can get him involved any way he wants, and it should help the offense.

Notably, that shift to being more of a downfield target increased over the back half of 2022. See the below chart, showing the difference between where Kaliakmanis targeted each of his receivers and where Tanner Morgan did.

Click to enlarge. Green cells mean a receiver's target rate was higher with Kaliakmanis
at quarterback; red cells mean it was lower.

Jackson was the target of nearly two-fifths of Kaliakmanis' intermediate throws (10 to 19 yards), up from just a 15 percent target rate at that level of the field with Morgan in the game.

What is also apparent on that chart is how much more Brevyn Spann-Ford got involved in the short game. When Kaliakmanis didn't have anywhere to go downfield, he checked down to his big tight end. Spann-Ford had more targets and more catches than any other Gopher, and more than all but two tight ends in the Big Ten.

He's not just a security blanket, though. He can be a genuine playmaker.

[Obligatory but necessary hurdle GIF]

Is Spann-Ford an NFL-level tight end? That's what he has left to prove. He is athletic and well built, he has a complete set of skills, and he is now a productive player. If Spann-Ford can truly dominate in an offense set to rely increasingly on the passing game, facing opponents such as Michigan and Ohio State, then he'll earn more than an all-conference honorable mention and could very well be drafted next April. If he cannot make that leap, then Minnesota will still have the best tight end in the Big Ten West.

NFL hopes may be gone at this point for Chris Autman-Bell. Seventh-year players are more or less finished products in the eyes of most scouts. The kind of injury that leads to a seventh year even being granted is typically a red flag, and that's before considering the effect that injury might have on performance.

Exactly what Autman-Bell can still do for the Gophers is unknown. It's a safe bet, though, to assume reliability. When we last saw him, he was still one of the best contested-ball winners in the country, and he has extensive experience contributing at all levels and in all corners of the field. Spencer, Crooms, and Jackson have that experience, too, if in shorter quantities. This group offers co-coordinators Simon and Greg Harbaugh a lot of flexibility.

Key Backups

The most intriguing receiver on the roster still might be redshirt sophomore Le'Meke Brockington. Brockington scored the vital touchdown in Minnesota's win at Wisconsin in November, which served as a proper announcement of his talent after his snap count had increased over the back half of the season. He is definitely fast, which is why Kaliakmanis went to him in the intermediate and deep parts of the field.

A lot of those longer targets are now up for grabs with Brown-Stephens and Wright gone. While Spencer, Crooms, and Autman-Bell may take away some of his reps, Brockington has a chance to capitalize on the need for a receiver who can chase long balls over the top.

Fleck often talks about how his offense adjusts to the personnel available. When the Gophers had a lot of beef up front, they frequently deployed a six- or seven-man line and ran the ball a lot. When they had two NFL receivers... they still ran the ball a lot, but not "most of any FBS team that isn't a service academy" a lot.

Last year, Kirk Ciarrocca did not use as many two-tight end sets as Mike Sanford Jr. had the previous two seasons. Ko Kieft's departure meant Spann-Ford was easily the most proven tight end on the roster, so the Gophers stayed in 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end) on three-quarters of their snaps.

With a receiver room the coaches have more faith in, that likely won't change much. Still, Nick Kallerup will be needed to give Spann-Ford a break or to complement him in short-yardage situations. Kallerup has just two career catches going into his redshirt senior season, so it would be fair to call him a blocking tight end. He is at least effective at it, if not the destroyer that Kieft was.

Potential Rotation Options

Quentin Redding's place on the field is secure as long as he keeps producing as a returner. Sooner or later, the Gophers' braintrust may find a way to use him on offense as well. He's got the right traits for a slot receiver, with his quickness and ability to navigate tight spaces. He just hasn't gotten to apply them outside of special teams.

Of course, there's someone on the roster who may make Redding redundant on offense, and that's Kristen Hoskins. Hoskins kept his redshirt last year, showing on exactly one play how the coaches see him contributing in the future. It could have gone better.

Still, he's got four years to play, and you can at least see how quickly Hoskins accelerates. I was very high on his skill set in last year's preview and do not consider the above play evidence that he will not have a place on this team. Perhaps that starts as a specialist or package player, taking tap-passes and screens, but he has ample time to become a bit more well-rounded and earn more reps. Getting into the slot in a real game before Redding did could suggest he's closer than we realize. At the least, he can show up as a secondary returner.

Jameson Geers got into a few games last season but is decidedly the team's No. 3 tight end for now. While Fleck has talked up Geers' potential since he arrived to campus in 2021, he still has to wait for Spann-Ford to leave. The redshirt sophomore did equal Kallerup's reception total on roughly one-fifth as many snaps last year (per PFF).

Notables Unlikely to Contribute

The Gophers usually keep a small receiver rotation, but there theoretically could be a place for Dino Kaliakmanis in case the amount that they throw the ball (or an injury) necessitates it. Athan targeted his older brother just once last year, late in the blowout win over Colorado.

True freshman Kenric Lanier II enrolled early but did not make much of a mark in the spring game. He brings size, speed, and strength, which will serve him well running fade routes in Minnesota's offense. Though the other outlets in their composite metric were lower on him, 247 Sports' own evaluators gave Lanier a 4-star rating.

Another early enrollee, T.J. McWilliams, flipped to Minnesota from Purdue just two days before the December Signing Day. He looks a little shiftier but may lack the same kind of burst as Lanier. He appeared in the All-American Bowl in January.

For Pine Forest High School (Florida), Donielle Hayes returned kicks in addition to playing mostly as an outside receiver. He certainly has straight-line speed and leaping ability, and he's a mean (but clean) blocker, but he probably needs to develop his footwork.

Minnesota's only other tight end with Division I game experience is Wyatt Schroeder, who appeared in garbage time four times last season. He and Geers should have that duty again this season, unless someone usurps him on the depth chart. Frank Bierman is the only player behind Schroeder that is not a freshman or redshirt freshman, having joined the team from Iowa Western Community College a season ago.