2026 Gophers Position Previews: Receivers and Tight Ends

Summer days are getting shorter. Football is coming. To make you the fan at your tailgate most informed on the top, middle, and bottom of Minnesota's depth chart, Ski-U-Blog is previewing each position group on the roster. As always, the first installment of this series covers the Gophers' pass-catchers.

Likely Starters

Where else to start but where things left off?

That's Jalen Smith, then a redshirt freshman from Mankato, making his second fantastic touchdown catch to defeat New Mexico in overtime of Minnesota's bowl game. Smith led the Gophers with 15.0 yards per reception over the course of the season, becoming a legit deep threat thanks to his speed and ball-tracking ability. He also gained the 4th-most receiving yards ever by a Minnesota freshman.

Excluding Maxx Williams, who only played two seasons before leaving for the NFL, every past player in the above table ranks in the program's top 10 in career yards. Such a strong start tends to be the first chapter in a successful tenure in maroon and gold.

Smith will have greater responsibility this season. He and Javon Tracy need to step up in the wake of Le'Meke Brockington's departure. Brockington played more a vertical game in his early years, but by the end of his Minnesota career, he was a target at every level of the field. Tracy, the team's leader touchdown catches (6), can do that. Not that Smith never ran underneath routes; the short and intermediate stuff is just what Tracy does best.

With the ball in his hands, he is one of the Gophers' best playmakers. His ability to hit the brakes and change direction makes him a problem for defenders. They think they have him trapped, but he sneaks out and darts for yards after the catch.

It should be cause for concern, though, that Tracy is the most proven receiver on Minnesota's roster. The Minnesota passing game was only sporadically effective last year, to the point that P.J. Fleck replaced longtime receivers coach Matt Simon with alumnus Isaac Fruechte. Smith and Tracy combined for fewer than 1,000 yards last season. One of them must show they can be a legit No. 1, or the other receivers on the roster need to make this one of the deepest receiving groups in the conference. While I like this group's potential for growth, I am skeptical of either of those outcomes happening this season.

Among the reinforcements: Noah Jennings, who joins Minnesota after one respectable but unremarkable year at Cincinnati. He was 5th on the Bearcats in receptions and receiving yards, and he never got into the end zone. It was probably not the FBS debut that Jennings, a two-year starter at Charleston Southern, hoped to make.

Watching him in the FCS, it's that Jennings' athleticism was a bit above a 1-11 Big South team. He is long and quick, able to win jump balls and pick up yards with the ball in his hands.

After Jennings moved to the Big 12, Cincinnati seemingly liked him more as a sideline threat. Again, he had a fine season but hardly excelled. We've seen enough to predict that he will not shine but will contribute. At the minimum, he can give the Gophers a couple decent seasons of versatility and become a favored red zone target.

The Gophers have had someone experienced and reliable at tight end every season since the pandemic, which is how five Minnesota tight ends are in NFL training camps this month. The position has become a consistent strength in this program and is rapidly becoming one of the most fascinating areas of the roster, but in 2026, it is the site of a total reset. For a team that has increasingly given its tight ends a role in the passing game, there is a severe lack of established receiving bona fides.

Pierce Walsh enters his fourth year in the program but will only be seeing his second season of action, having redshirted in 2023 and missing all of 2025 with an injury. He has a couple of starts under his belt but also just a couple receptions. Despite flexing out to the slot some and running routes, Walsh had scant opportunities to show what he could do with the ball.

Instead, Walsh did more as a blocker. He didn't put many highlight-reel blocks on tape, but he had real responsibility and acquitted himself well enough.

If Walsh can be a remotely capable receiver, he would set a fine enough floor for the position. He is highly unlikely to be the contested-catch ace or 3rd-down easy button that Jameson Geers was, and he may not even have the firmest grip on first-team snaps.

Key Backups

If there is one thing Fleck's Gophers love searching for, despite pretty limited returns, it is big-bodied X receivers. After first trying and failing to develop their own, their strategy has shifted this decade to adding former blue-chippers as transfers. Dylan Wright was the first example and represents the closest thing to a success story. After coming over from Texas A&M, Wright made 35 catches over two seasons and then left for TCU. Tyler Williams, a Georgia transfer, made just one catch with Minnesota before transferring to South Florida. Malachi Coleman had five receptions in 2025, including one against his former Nebraska teammates, but he is now a Wisconsin Badger. None of them ever turned their raw tools into consistent production.

The newest project: Perry Thompson. At 6-foot-3, 210 pounds, the former No. 44 recruit in the 2024 class fits the archetype. To the optimist, Thompson will look less like a reclamation project than the others. He has more college catches (22) and receiving yards (280) than Wright, Williams, and Coleman combined for in their pre-Minnesota careers. Thompson left Auburn during a coaching transition, not because the coaches who recruited him did not trust him with playing time. He started five games as a true sophomore. While he's not a finished product, having any sort of track record is a start.

When he was on the field, Thompson did not do archetypal X receiver things. The Tigers had Cam Coleman (now at Texas) for that, leaving Thompson with mostly short and intermediate targets. As a result, Thompson averaged only 9.1 yards per reception last season.

I'm inclined to think Thompson could be more of a sufficient option on the outside than a game-changer, but he is still young. With a route tree more tailored to his strengths, he may make a bigger impact.

Hayden Moore had a big spring game, which could foreshadow real contributions as a true freshman. His high school highlights show speed and jump-ball skills that line up with the vertical routes he ran in April, not to mention an admirable mean streak as a blocker. And even against another true freshman defensive back, it's nice to make an impression like this in one's first appearance in a college uniform:

Based on video and reporting from camp, Moore does take at least occasional reps with the first team. He is somewhere in the plans for 2026.

Zion Steptoe arrived to Purdue four years ago as a receiver, moved to defense, and then transferred to Tulsa (where his father and stepfather played) in order to play receiver again. Despite a couple of fairly productive years for the Golden Hurricane, Steptoe has never scored a touchdown in college.

Tulsa had him mostly on the outside, running more vertical routes than I expected. I think he is better suited for the slot, however. A slight, speedy receiver like him has the right traits to run a lot of short and intermediate routes, picking up his yards after the catch rather than before it. Or, maybe, on a handoff:

Regardless of where he lines up, Steptoe's skillset is a good one to have in reserve. Again, I don't see a new X-factor in the offense but a capable role player.

The Gophers' new No. 87, redshirt senior Kaden Helms, had only 58 receiving yards in his time at Oklahoma. Despite that making him the tight end room's leading receiver by far, Helms is here to be the new Frank Bierman. At 235 pounds, he is somewhat lean for the job and clearly gives up something against bigger defenders, but he is tenacious and executes his assignment in both the run game and pass protection.

Concerns about heft aside — and it should be said that the Big Ten did not invent being big — Helms should do exactly what the Gophers need from him. That could include fullback snaps, as he did align as an H-back for the Sooners from time to time.

The Gophers need another tight end who can catch passes and fill Drew Biber's shoes, though. The problem is that the rest of the room has just one college catch between them. A pair of redshirt sophomores, Julian Johnson or Jacob Simpson, are competing for the job. Normally, I would lean toward Simpson having the edge because he appeared in every game in 2025 as a special teamer. However, Johnson had much more of a presence in the bowl, and when the two both played for the Maroon team at the spring game, Johnson took more snaps with the 1s. The Gophers used four tight ends in a few games last year (Geers, Biber, Bierman, and Walsh), so both Johnson and Simpson could play. Neither has given us reason yet to expect an instant impact.

The headliner at tight end might not play much at his official position: Roman Voss made varsity as an 8th-grader, threw and ran all over the record books at Jackson County Central, and signed with the Gophers as a 4-star prospect last December. Even up against kids in rural Southwest Minnesota, Voss' physical tools are not in question. He is big, tough, and above all else, fast. One way or another, he was always going to be a Division I athlete.

With two more blue-chip tight ends committed for the class of 2027, the Gophers could be a couple of years away from killing teams out of 12 and 13 personnel. For now, though, that is only an exciting dream. Voss, for all his wonders, did not scratch even 400 career yards receiving in high school, and he surely needs time to develop as a blocker. Though by November, his role could increase beyond being a gadget and passing downs specialist, it will take time for the Gophers to fully enjoy his upside. Expect to see a little bit of Voss before we see a lot of him.

Potential Rotation Options

Bradley Martino and Donielle Hayes are two players trying to be the seventh wideout. Martino arrived to campus last season and has yet to see action; Hayes is a redshirt junior whose only career catches were in the bowl against Virginia Tech two years ago. Martino offers the size and straight-line speed of an archetypal X circa 2012 — traits that made him a 4-star prospect but are somewhat redundant in this offense if Thompson is a part of it. Hayes could therefore be the more likely of the two to crack the rotation.

Notables Unlikely to Contribute

Gabe Weaver and George Rohl arrive to campus with considerably less hype than Voss. P.J. Fleck compared the two to past Minnesota tight ends, casting Weaver as another big-bodied project like Brevyn Spann-Ford and Rohl as a hard-nosed successor to Nick Kallerup. Spann-Ford and Kallerup are both in the NFL, of course. They also both took time to make their marks, which is a hint at how long it may be before Weaver and Rohl figure into things. Redshirt junior Sam Peters will get some special teams looks and probably nothing more.

With seven departures from last year's receiver room, Minnesota added five true freshmen to the roster, three of whom committed in November or December. The latest addition to the class was Josiah Dozier, who flipped from South Florida after Alex Golesh took the Auburn job. Dozier's tape includes enough hints of technicality and physicality to think he could run a variety of routes in time, but for the most part, he used his speed and height to burn defenses on screens and fades.

Height is not a part of Braiden Stevens' repertoire. At officially 5-foot-8, Stevens' game is all about speed, acceleration, and a low center of gravity. He is a very fun type of receiver, the kind who can spin out of jams and juke opposing defenders into each other. Stevens was also the 4th-lowest-rated member of the Gophers' 31-player recruiting class. Any player his size will face a challenge just to get on the field in the Big Ten, let alone contribute.

Like Dozier and Stevens, the Gophers pursued Quayd Hendrix late in the cycle, offering him a scholarship less than a month before the first Signing Day and flipping him from UConn less than a week before Jim Mora Jr. left for Colorado State. Hendrix's offer list does not quite match his composite 4-star status, but he is clearly a high-level athlete with a litany of accolades in football, basketball, and track. He is another speedster, but with a little more evident deftness than Dozier, an extra 4 inches of height over Stevens, and the ability to track the ball in the air as well. Down the line, he may find a place in the slot or as a slightly undersized flanker.

The gangly Rico Blassingame enrolled early and had a couple of targets in the spring game, but no catches. With 22 reported offers and a 4-star rating from 247Sports' evaluators (not from the composite), Blassingame was well-recruited because of how frequently and satisfyingly he Mosses guys. He needs to bulk up before seeing the field and probably develop his arsenal of releases — which he has the agility and acceleration to do — but Blassingame could enter the rotation in a year or two.