Regardless of the year, spring football is always a period full of transitions and new faces in new places. That’s certainly the case at Virginia after a tumultuous 2022 on and off the field, which led to plenty of departures and arrivals.
Nowhere is that sense of change more evident than in the receiver room, which is in the midst of a major overhaul this spring.
Gone is Marques Hagans, who coached the receivers for 11 years. His move to Penn State earlier in the offseason is far from the only departure at the position. Of course, UVa tragically lost Lavel Davis and Devin Chandler in November’s shooting on Grounds. Once the football season was over, Dontayvion Wicks and Keytaon Thompson decided to head to the NFL and Billy Kemp chose to transfer (Nebraska).
Those players made up most of UVa’s production at receiver last season, and with that much change there will need to be new faces to step up and create a productive group.
Starting this spring, Adam Mims takes over as the position coach, clearly with a big job on his hands. Mims was promoted following Hagans departure after spending the 2022 season as a senior offensive analyst in an off-field support role. He and Tony Elliott go way back to Mims’ playing days at Furman, when the highly-productive receiver was coached by Elliott (as a receivers coach). Since then, Mims coached for several years at the FCS level, with stops at UT-Chattanooga, Presbyterian and Tennessee Tech.
Now, he steps into the breach with large shoes to fill and also the daunting task of replacing nearly all of the production at his position.
“We’ve got a lot of guys that are somewhat unproven, so they come out with a great hunger every day,” Mims said Tuesday of the receiver room. “They come out with a great attitude every day, and that makes it so much easier to coach.”
Just because the room is unproven and relatively young doesn’t mean that it’s devoid of talent. UVa has a few playmakers that have been role players in the past but will be leaned on this fall.
The most notable of which is Charlottesville native Malachi Fields, who missed almost all of 2022 with a foot injury. Fields was able to return for UVa’s final game of the season against Pittsburgh, and despite being on a snap count he was able to make an impact: Fields caught five passes for 58 yards and a touchdown against the Panthers, the score being the first of his career.
And as spring progresses, momentum is building towards a breakout season for the former Monticello Mustang.
“Malachi is just consistent,” Mimis told media members this week. “He’s consistent in everything that he does, on the field and off the field. When he was going through that rehabilitation process, he attacked it like a game. We saw week in and week out that we might have a chance to get him back earlier than we actually think. That’s kudos to him, kudos to our training staff, how he just attacked his rehab. It wasn’t a shock to me out of that kid, because that’s who he is. That’s his makeup, that’s his DNA.”
Fields said he had a tough time watching his teammates from the sideline last year and he’s certainly glad to be back out on the practice field making plays.
“It was tough to deal with, mostly just being out of football, because I saw the guys going out every day and playing football and I just wanted to get back to that,” Fields said of his injury and returning to the field. “Having that year off takes something out of you, but being back with the guys, we’re all flying around every day, it’s just super fun. And everyone wants to be out there, it’s all enjoyable.”
Another potential rising star in the receiver room is JR Wilson, a rising sophomore who came on late in his rookie season. As UVa’s veterans dealt with various injuries down the stretch, the coaching staff was forced to turn to younger players and backups to play a lot in a few games. In a home matchup against UNC, the penultimate game of the season, Wilson started and played quite a bit, showing some flashes along the way. He finished the game with 61 yards on five catches, and then had three more catches for 25 yards the following week against the Panthers.
Given what UVa lost in the receiver room, Wilson is likely going to be asked to replicate what he did against UNC and Pitt over the course of a 12-game season.
“He’s still young but I’ve kind of thrown him in that proverbial fire and he’s responded,” Mims said of Wilson. “There’s still a lot there that we’ve got to work on with him, but his upside is through the roof. And I think that every single day, his confidence is continuing to build. It’s good to see, and that’s where it starts. It starts in your head, and then your body follows.”
Wilson missed some time in fall camp with an injury last year and the fact that he was able to make an impact at all as a freshman is pretty remarkable. Heading into Year 2, he knows he belongs and is getting used to life at the collegiate level.
“Just seeing the upside I had last year, and I’m getting very comfortable,” the New York City native said after Tuesday’s practice. “As a first-year, you kind of get jitters with everything, but now that I’ve been in the program for a year it’s starting to feel like regular football again.
“I’m very much comfortable,” he added, “and it doesn’t seem like a big overwhelming thing when I go to practice. I’m used to it now, I would say.”
Wilson and Fields are likely to factor in significantly this season. As will rising junior Demick Starling and grad transfer Malik Washington. Starling has shown flashes here and there through his two years at UVa and has the playmaking ability to make things happen down the field when he gets an opportunity. And Washington is the veteran of the group, coming to Virginia after a productive career at Northwestern. With the Wildcats, he went for a team-high 65 receptions and 694 yards last fall.
Between these four receivers, UVa not only has some intriguing talent but a variety of skillsets as well.
“I just feel like the room just has a lot of young talent and a lot of raw talent,” Wilson said, when asked about what the various receivers bring to the table. “Myself, Malik, Malachi, you’ve got Demick in there. There’s a lot of young guys who bring different skillets.”
“Demick is kind of our speedster, so that’s different,” he continued. “Malik, he’s kind of our shifty guy. Malachi is our big, strong guy. Me, I would say I’m in between, the middle, trying to play finesse and physical.”
“With Malachi and JR, they’re bigger guys that bring that big, physical presence out wide,” Mims said. “Demick brings a different aspect than a lot of guys on our team. He has elite speed. He’s a guy that can really stretch the field.
“And with Malik, he’s the epitome of consistency,” the first-year assistant added. “He’s really come in here and really taken things seriously in a sense where he wants to get better in everything that he does,” Mimis said of his transfer wideout, who is the odds-on-favorite to lead the Cavaliers in catches this fall. “Whether it’s in the meeting room, whether it’s on the field, he takes ball extremely seriously. That’s just been great for our room. Just the leadership and the consistency and the efficiency that he brings on a daily basis.”
There is no doubt that the receivers have lost a lot and have been through a lot, too. This spring gives UVa an opportunity to develop a new crop of players and their ability to go from young guys looking up to veterans to example setters and productive players will in large part determine what kind of offense the Cavaliers field this season.
Despite a lot of turnover, the group seems to believe it has what it needs to be successful.
“There’s definitely a lot of personality in the room,” Fields explained. “The younger guys saw those older guys leave and they’re like ‘it’s my time now,’ stepping up. And we’ve just seen them all working and wanting to be the guy. Everybody is just around each other working and going for that spot to get on the field.”
And while this group is hungry to prove themselves this season, they’re also handling a transition in position coaches. Perhaps it matters that Mims was around the program last year and familiarity helps with the transition. Regardless, he has made it clear this spring that his receivers need to meet the high bar and that he’s going to do what he can to help them get there.
“Coach Mims is louder, he’s out there yelling at us at practice, getting after us,” Fields said. “But it’s a good thing; we can hear him so it definitely pushes us to work.”
“I tell them every day that I’m demanding,” Mims said of his coaching style. “My expectations are always going to be high, so ‘good’ is never going to be good enough for me.
“But it’s been extremely encouraging just seeing them practice, play the way that I want them to, the way their teammates want them to and the way they need them to,” he continued. “Seeing them go out and make plays, seeing them play fast, seeing them be physical, being able to respond to coaching, being coachable. It’s been a joy to coach this group, it honestly has. We’ve got a good group of hungry guys that just want to get better. And you see that, how they come out to practice and attack practice every single day.”
