Countdown to ACC Kickoff, No. 8: Marcus Davis
The ACC Kickoff (aka media days) is fast approaching. I’ll be using the blog to count down to what we media members consider the unofficial start of the football season. This isn’t a list of the 25 best players on Virginia Tech’s roster. It’s a list of 25 things/people that will determine whether the Hokies’ 2012 season is a success or not. That includes players and coaches from both Virginia Tech and, occasionally, a few of its opponents.
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No. 8: Marcus Davis, senior wide receiver
If you were building a wide receiver from scratch, you probably wouldn’t deviate much from the mold of Marcus Davis.
He’s a chiseled 6-foot-4, 228 pounds. He runs the 40 in 4.37 seconds. He’s got a 44-inch vertical. He is, as CBS Sports’ Bruce Feldman wrote this spring, an athletic freak. The question is, can Davis put everything together in his senior season at Virginia Tech?
Davis has always been a sidekick in the receiving game. With Jarrett Boykin and Danny Coale around, rewriting the Hokies record books, there wasn’t a whole lot of room for other receivers to have their star turns. With both of those seniors gone now, this is the chance.
D.J. Coles is a big receiving target. Dyrell Roberts is a speedy threat. Davis, who had 30 catches, 510 yards and tied for a team-high with five receiving touchdowns last year, is a combination of the two. Coaches have said if he can find the consistency needed at wide receiver, he could be great.
Tech fans have seen flashes of it over the years. He had four catches for 81 yards and two touchdowns in a win at North Carolina as a sophomore. His two biggest games last year came in the opener and Tech’s biggest rivalry game. He had 140 yards and two touchdowns against Appalachian State. In the regular season finale at Virginia, he had five catches for 119 yards and a touchdown.
He provided big-play capability in the UVa game, stretching the field on go routes with catches of 36 and 52 yards. With Boykin and Coale gone, however, he’ll need to be more than just a guy who can stretch the field. It’s that every-down consistency, running routes with precision and being a reliable target for Logan Thomas that will be the difference between Davis being a bit player or a star.
The opportunity is there. Tech has four senior wide receivers (Davis, Coles, Roberts and Corey Fuller) and not much else in terms of experience. Boykin and Coale combined for 121 receptions, 1,665 yards and eight touchdowns, roughly half of Virginia Tech’s production in the receiving game.
With Thomas, the Hokies are going to throw the ball, so they’ll need somebody to step up in the receiving game. ESPN draft guru listed Davis as the third-best senior wide receiver in the country. If he lives up to that billing, he could have a huge year.
Coming Sunday: It’s been off the last few years.
Previous entries:
- No. 25: Randall Dunn, senior tight end
- No. 24: Donaldven Manning, freshman cornerback
- No. 23: Pick a punter
- No. 22: J.C. Coleman, freshman running back
- No. 21: Georgia Tech’s option offense
- No. 20: Antoine and Derrick Hopkins, defensive tackles
- No. 19: EJ Manuel, Florida State quarterback
- No. 18: Bud Foster, defensive coordinator
- No. 17: A fourth wide receiver
- No. 16: Cody Journell, junior kicker
- No. 15: Brent Benedict and David Wang, offensive guards
- No. 14: Dyrell Roberts, senior wide receiver
- No. 13: Detrick Bonner and Kyshoen Jarrett, safeties
- No. 12: Dabo Swinney, Clemson head coach
- No. 11: Key reserves
- No. 10: Frank Beamer, head coach
- No. 9: Bruce Taylor and Tariq Edwards, inside linebackers
July 14, 2012 - 10:15 AM
Davis definitely has the skills and the athleticism, hopefully he will now take advantage of the opportunity. On a side note, when I read the words “…Tech’s biggest rivalry…” the Miami game immediately leaped into my mind and I couldn’t recall Davis being much of a factor in that game…funny. As a Hokie, am I alone in not seeing the ‘hoos as our biggest rivalry anymore?
Wow, if Davis is billed that high, then he better step up his A game. My memory is sketchy, but wasn’t he originally a quarterback that was moved to wide receiver?
My question here is the use of the word “consistency”. What exactly do we mean by that? Are we looking for yards/game? Catches? What exactly? How many targets a game did he get? Why? VT was very deep on “O” last year….
With Boykin and Coale being the normal first reads, how does Davis get targeted? With Wilson in the backfield and Thomas going 20 yards on Sneaks, how many times is a deep ball become the first read?
Or, do the coaches maintain that he was targeted a bunch but he wasn’t where he should be? Or, do they mean he took plays “off” if he was down the read list?
I see a WR with good speed, hands and moves. Last year he seemed to be a “secret weapon” rather than the primary threat.
So what are we really looking for here?
I’m not an expert on this but I’ll try to explain what I think this means. A consistent receiver rarely drops passes, runs good routes or blocks well on every play (and an important part of that is running routes the same way every time so that Logan knows exactly how he’s going to run the route and where he’ll be). When they say he lacks consistency it probably means that he plays where he has mental lapses, or doesn’t always run the route with 100% effort. It’s easy as a receiver to sometimes become a non-factor in a game for stretches of time.
As far as reads go (again I’m not an expert) but each play has a primary read and a progression to go through. Coale and Boykin were probably frequently the primary read, but there are plays in the offense where Davis is or Coles is etc. So there were plays where Marcus was supposed to get the ball, but if he wasn’t consistently getting open then there would be no reason to call plays for him. (Take Justin Blackmon for example at OK State. Every team made it a priority to stop him, yet he had a big game virtually every week. That’s the epitome of a consistent, unstoppable receiver).
Honestly I think he can be a very good NFL caliber receiver, but sometimes he has huge game-changing plays and sometimes he disappears into obscurity. If he can be a game-changer or at least a steady threat every game this year I think he will get drafted fairly high.
If Davis is considered that high…and Coles is better…Geez, VT has two of the top senior WRs in the country. WOW. Sarcasm. I do agree that it is hard to be consistent on the field when you are the 5th or 6th option….