T.J. Rahming enters his junior season as the leading receiver on Duke's roster. As a sophomore, Rahming caught 70 passes for 742 yards and one touchdown. No other Duke receiver surpassed 400 receiving yards. Over the first two seasons of his career, Rahming has 113 receptions for 1,313 yards and three touchdowns. Those numbers are good but they are not great.
For comparison, during the 2016 season, Clemson's Mike Williams caught 98 passes for 1,361 yards and 11 touchdowns; North Carolina's Ryan Switzer caught 96 passes for 1,112 yards and six touchdowns; Virginia Tech's Isaiah Ford caught 79 passes for 1,094 yards and seven touchdowns.
Rahming's stats compare favorably with Miami's Stacey Coley who caught 63 passes for 754 yards. The difference is Coley had nine touchdown receptions to Rahming's one. Moreover, Coley wasn't Miami's leader in receiving yards as Ahmmon Richards caught 49 passes for 934 yards and three touchdowns.
The point is Duke lacks a stand out receiver, a dynamic number one guy, on the outside, who causes defensive coordinators sleepless nights. Will that change in 2017? Will Rahming step up his production in 2017? Will another receiver emerge as the number one target?
Despite not having a stand out receiver, Duke's receiving corps is deep. There will be a lot of competition to secure spots in the starting line-up alongside Rahming. Johnathan Lloyd, Chris Taylor, Quay Chambers and Aaron Young all started games and achieved varying levels of success in 2016.
Duke's offensive scheme features three wide receivers in most sets. The philosophy is to bang away at the defense with the read option running game and quick passes to set-up big play opportunities via the vertical passing game. Achieving success on those big play opportunities is where Duke struggled in 2016 and where improvement is needed in 2017.
Johnathan Lloyd started 10 games catching 34 passes for 301 yards and three touchdowns. It is worth noting 2016 was Lloyd's first season at receiver having spent his freshman season playing cornerback. With a season at receiver under his belt Lloyd could make a dramatic jump in performance in 2017. Lloyd primarily operated as the slot receiver.
Chris Taylor started five games catching 29 passes for 315 yards and three touchdowns. Taylor finished 2016 strong catching 22 of his 29 passes in the last five games of the season. Taylor has had to deal with some minor nicks and bruises type injury issues during his time in Durham so staying healthy would be a boon for the coming year.
Quay Chambers has outstanding size at 6'3" 220. He started one game in 2016 and caught 15 passes for 187 yards and two touchdowns on the season. His best performance was in South Bend when he caught five passes for 55 yards and a touchdown in Duke's 38-35 win over the Irish. Chambers has all the measureables to be a big time receiver. Can he break out as a senior?
Aaron Young started two games catching 11 passes for 124 yards and two touchdowns. His touchdown receptions where against Army and Miami. Young is another big receiver at 6'2" 205.
And that leads us to rising redshirt freshman Scott Bracey, the receiver Duke fans are longing to see make his debut on the field. Bracey arrived at Duke amid much fanfare but was injured in practice early and could never break into the receiver rotation as a true freshman. Can a healthy Bracey be the dynamic number one receiver Duke is looking for?
Another player who cannot be overlooked is rising redshirt sophomore Keyston Fuller who missed the 2016 season after undergoing knee surgery. Fuller has yet to see game action as a Blue Devil.
Finally, incoming freshman Damond Johnson has tremendous speed with a reported 4.30 40 yard dash on his resume. That is stretch the field speed which not only sets up the opportunity for big play success but opens up underneath routes and the running game because the defense must respect the deep route anytime Johnson is in the game. Time will tell if Johnson has the requisite receiver skill sets such as route running discipline, hands and blocking ability to get on the field in 2017.
Duke is indeed deep at wide receiver but the question which remains to be answered is who will step up and operate opposite T.J. Rahming to give defensive coordinators multiple problems to scheme against when developing game plans to defend the Blue Devils.
The offense must score more points in 2017 for the Blue Devils to win games and achieve bowl eligibility as the points per game achieved in 2016 (23.3 ppg) was 8.2 points less than in 2015 (31.5 ppg). Multiple wide receivers achieving big play success will contribute significantly if that offensive improvement is attained.
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