Clemson football: Wide receiver group needs to earn ‘WRU’ honors

The Clemson football program has boasted itself as ‘WRU‘ for much of the last decade and, for the most part, it has been the truth.

The Tigers have continuously put talent in the NFL at the position and we’ve seen numerous All-Americans and All-ACC players play wide receiver over the course of the last few seasons for Clemson, including names like DeAndre Hopkins, Sammy Watkins, Artavis Scott, Mike Williams, Hunter Renfrow, Adam Humphries, Deon Cain and many others.

But, as we look at this current group of wide receivers, something is lacking.

It’s not ‘on-paper’ talent. It’s not the look of them when they get off the bus. It’s not their vertical or measurables. It’s the effort.

The Clemson football wide receivers don’t currently deserve to wear that ‘WRU’ shirt

This isn’t a knock on one player and as we’ve already said, there’s no lack of talent in this group.

We’ve seen Joseph Ngata make tons of highlight-reel plays. We’ve seen Justyn Ross show flashes of what we remembered about him from his pre-surgery days. We’ve seen the potential of Ajou Ajou, Frank Ladson Jr. and Beaux Collins.

But, the problem with this unit as a whole is the fact that we’re not seeing a group focus on ‘effort.’

There are far too many drops coming from a position group that calls itself ‘WRU.’ It’s understandable that you’ll always have some drops and of course those are going to be amplified when you have a quarterback constantly throwing his ‘fast ball’ when he doesn’t need to, but there are still far too many catchable balls falling onto the dirt and it’s no one’s fault except the receiver’s.

Perhaps the most frustrating portion of what we’ve seen from this group, though, is the fact that they simply don’t block for one another and they look disinterested if the play isn’t drawn up for them.

We finally saw some good downfield blocking from Justyn Ross last game, but the vast majority of the time, the wide receivers on the outside simply don’t block. We’ve seen plays where Clemson throws a screen and there are two blockers on the outside just to have one defender bring down the ball-carrier before anything can ever happen.

That’s not a lack of talent. That’s a lack of effort.

If this wide receiver group wants to earn that ‘WRU’ patch back, they need to start taking pride in the small things– especially blocking for one another– and that’s when we’ll start to see more success come from the horizontal plays.

Until we see an added an emphasis on effort, though, this group is going to look nothing like ‘Wide Receiver U.’