Notre Dame Spring ’07 Report: Wide Receivers Update

While I’m catching up with some of the All Access videos I’ve missed over the past couple of days, I figured I’d post something about the wide receivers in a similar fashion to Saturday’s post on the running backs.

David Grimes – Grimes will be “the man” for the Irish at wide receiver this year unless someone knocks him off the top spot – and right now it doesn’t look like thats likely. Being in the system for three years, Grimes is completely acclimated to the offense and is ahead of the other receivers in terms of fully grasping the offense. Honestly, I am not sure how I feel about Grimes as the #1 receiver right now. He showed signs of being a pretty good receiver at times, but he will have a lot of work to do to be able to fill in for either of the departed starters. I like his quickness and his moves in the open field, but his lack of size will result in a lot of jams at the line.

George West – West has emerged as the second receiver right now. Having a full spring already under his belt, West has had more time in the offense than his fellow freshman counterparts. West is even smaller than Grimes which would make a starting duo of Grimes and West result in some lost sleep for Weis this summer. Like Grimes, I like West’s quickness and ability to make people miss, but I also about West being able to get off the line of scrimmage against physical corners.

DJ Hord – Hord is coming off the leg injury and is still looking to get over the mental hurdles according to comments Weis has made. Coming back from an Achilles injury for a receiver is almost as much mental as it is physical. I still think Hord has the ability to be a starting caliber receiver in this offense in 2007, but according to a Michael Rothstein report yesterday, Hord was running with the third group of receivers which is not a good sign.

Robby Parris – So far it looks like Parris would be the third receiver right now. Today’s SBT mentioned that Parris was having some trouble with his blocking which is not overly surprising for a freshman wide receiver. Parris has been labeled as a poor man’s Jeff Samardzija from the time he committed to Notre Dame and the label might not be too far off, but the jury is still out. Parris has looked good enough to run with the second group of receivers. If the season started today, Parris would be the third receiver.

“The Pack” – Not much has been said about the rest of the Notre Dame receivers this spring. Weis made mention of the pack the past few days and how West has emerged from the pack, but other than West and Grimes, there hasn’t been much mention of any of the receivers by Weis. There was some encouraging news regarding Richard Jackson coming into the spring based on off-season seven on seven drills, but so far Jackson has not done much of mention this spring. Barry Gallup’s name has also not come up too much this spring. Of all of this year’s freshman receivers, I was the most excited about Jackson and I still think he will end up to be the most successful receiver in the group when all is said and done.