I was born in Dallas, Texas, but I was raised in south Florida. ‘Ice Ice Baby’ is about that area.
– Vanilla Ice, musician
There are few systems that exist within the realm of CFB that can boast a more ironclad track record of featuring the slot receiver position than FAU HC Tom Herman’s.
Given that fact, in March of last year I wrote about former Florida Atlantic slot receiver— La’Johntay Wester, stating that he was in for a massive season in 2023 under Herman’s guidance. Bear in mind that last year’s article was published pre-Casey Thompson transfer.
As it turns out, Wester did have the season of his life (even a broken clock is right twice a day), finishing as a top five WR in College Fantasy Football (CFF).
A Florida native, Wester began his career with the FAU Owls, and patiently waited his turn to be the feature man. In 2022, that began taking shape, as he finished the season with 100 targets and found himself atop the Owls’ receiving leaderboard on the year.
The 2023 offseason brought forth a positive harbinger in Wester’s outlook as a CFF asset, when former Texas Longhorn head coach Tom Herman was announced as the newest head coach in Boca Rotan. Herman’s system has a longstanding history of featuring the slot receiver position—which made this a perfect marriage for the fourth year slot receiver out of Palmetto, FL.
Wester—despite a relatively quiet drumbeat from myself and other content creators in this space—was still a relative unknown to the general CFF public. But not so to the CFF cognoscenti, who recognized the warning signs that a major buy opportunity existed at FAU.
Sporting his 5’11″, 167 pound build, Wester was an absolute menace in 2023 under Herman’s guidance. He finished the year with an astonishing 145 targets in 12 games (~12 per), 1,168 yards and eight receiving scores. Oh, and he also ran the ball eight times for 44 yards and another score (23.6 PPG in 1PPR). These types of numbers are not atypical for Herman’s slot.
Unfortunately for Herman (and us), La’Johntay Wester bolted for greener pastures in the offseason (Colorado). His transfer leaves a massive production vacancy in its wake, and naturally, the question on our minds is: who will replace him?
Well, it might not necessarily be one player. Here’s an excerpt from a report on the spring game:
The hole LaJohntay Wester left after transferring to Colorado would strain any program. But in Saturday’s scrimmage, Herman showed that the offense will take the “Moneyball” approach by recreating Wester’s nine receptions per game (which marked second in the nation behind Virginia’s Malik Washington at 9.2) in the aggregate.
Eleven receivers tallied receptions in the first half, with Omari Hayes leading the way with 55 yards and one touchdown on seven catches.
“I feel like I always had it in me, but with a 1,000-yard receiver [like] LaJohntay being here, I feel like that overshadowed who I was and what I can do,” Hayes said. “So when I’m going, I feel like I can stress how good I am and show everybody what I can do.”
“That’s probably what you’re going to see…” Herman said. “I don’t know that we’re going to have a guy lead the country in catches again. The last two out of the three years I’ve been a head coach we have. But that’s OK, that means that we have a lot of depth and a lot of quality depth… I think the fact that we’ve got six to eight guys that we feel really good about is a real positive, too.
Despite the comment about Money-balling the position, Omari Hayes’ spring performance stands out.
Omari Hayes — 5’9″, 165 lbs.
2023 STATS: NA
So, as can be seen above, there isn’t much to discuss in terms of Hayes’ career production. The third-year player out of Sarasota has been with FAU since 2022 and has yet to register a reception. That sounds like it’s going to change this year, regardless of whether he’s Wester’s replacement or not.
247 Sports actually had Hayes at eight receptions in the spring game:
Redshirt sophomore Omari Hayes was a beast in the short-passing game, catching eight balls for 58 yards and a touchdown.
Hayes thinks that with LaJohntay Wester departing for Colorado, he “can express how good” he is “and show everybody” what he can do.
Regardless of whether it was seven or eight receptions, it seems like Hayes is going to be a target man in this offense, and his build suggests he’ll be a slot player for the Owls.
Milan Tucker — 5’11″, 163
2023 STATS: 21-305-1 (4.3 PPG)
In addition to Hayes, who was obviously the star of the spring game, there is another intriguing name on the roster. Tucker is a 5’11″, 163-pound WR out of Fort Myers, FL. And no, he’s not just a clone of Wester, despite what the profile may lead you to believe. Tucker spent his first three seasons playing for App State, where his best year came in 2023. He caught 21 passes for 305 yards and a score while also rushing four times for another score (4.3 PPG).
I should say Tucker’s profile at this point in time is not as good as Wester’s was this time last year (not even close actually). For starters, Wester was coming off a 16+ PPG season in 2022. Tucker’s PPG at App State is nowhere close to that—furthermore, Tucker has not been a relevant CFF asset, really in any format, thus far. Wester was on many rosters already in 2022.
As far as why Tucker’s caught my eye, it is because: 1) with a nickname like ‘Agent 0’ it’s a good sign that he was immediately granted the #0 jersey upon his arrival at FAU, and 2) perhaps more importantly, his build is that of a slot receiver in a room filled with six foot+ basketball players. While he was not CFF-relevant last season, he’s also not coming in with zero production to his name. Tucker was a main player at App State; he even had a season-high of 13 points vs. ECU. He’s even got the Horns Up thing that Texas people do (pictured at the top)—I’m sure Herman noticed this as well.
While Hayes had the most impressive day, Tucker also put in a good shift, from 247 Sports:
Shifty Appalachian State transfer Milan Tucker made what might’ve been the passing offense’s best play of the day, taking a short pass from Starks on a drag route and turning up field for a 41-yard touchdown, all while eluding several would-be tacklers in the process. He finished with four receptions for 51 yards. Tucker feels comfortable with where he’s at in the adjustment to learning a new offense but thinks that he still has room for improvement.
“I feel really comfortable,” Tucker said. “A lot of it is just more on the little details, what defenses are trying to take away from me so I can gain an edge on them and use them to my advantage instead of having [the football] thrown at me and not knowing what to do. So knowing the game within the game is where I need to take that for going into summer and then going into fall.”
While Hayes is the more obvious option here, Tucker is another who could occupy the slot role in the fall. Spring games are a good data point to consider, but they are not the be-all-end-all when it comes to determining who’s going to be a CFF stud when the season kicks off.
Tom Herman is the slot receiver King
The fabled Kittley offensive coaching tree might have something to say about the statement in the title, but in terms of sample size and potency, I think I have to give the nod to Herman here.
For some additional context for today’s article, Herman has been the coach of FAU since 2023. Prior to last season, he was an analyst with the Chicago Bears in 2021. He is best known from his time as the head coach of Texas (2018-2020), Houston (2015-16), and Ohio State (2012-2014). Below is a copy-pasted excerpt from the original article I did on Wester:
Few would recognize him from the above picture, but it is indeed former overweight Texas Longhorn head coach Tom Herman.
Herman had tremendous success with slot WRs during his Texas tenure. Between 2018 and 2020, the slot receiver never caught less than 9 TD passes, and in Herman’s last two full seasons at UT (2018 and 2019) the slot WR averaged 96 catches and 1,281 yards. It was Devin Duvernay in 2019 that led UT from the slot with a 106-1,386-9 stat-line, following Lil Jordan Humphrey’s 86-1,176-9 contribution from the slot in 2018.
In his two years at Houston before UT (2015-2016), Herman’s WR1 went over 1,000 yards each season (1,118 and 1,222, respectively). Coincidently, each of those players (Demarcus Ayers and Linell Bonner) both caught 98 passes when they led the Cougs in receiving. Bonner was the slot receiver in 2016, Ayers in 2015.
The Ohio State teams he OC’d were much were run-oriented than the Buckeye outfits we’ve come to know and love as of late, so the pattern breaks down. As an OC rather than HC, his influence would have also been more limited under Urban Meyer.
And, of course, looking to this past season, Wester accumulated 145 targets in 12 games, 1,168 yards, and eight receiving scores while running the ball eight times for 44 yards and another score (23.6 PPG in 1PPR).
Herman’s OC—Charlie Frye, is also a coach you want to follow for CFF. Mike Bainbridge recently released a graphic showing the top 20 play callers in terms of target share to the WR1 over the last ten years, and Frye came in at #20 with just under 25%.
Closing
The profiles of both players covered today are definitely long shots, and if you plan to acquire a share, I’d implore you to act with that notion in mind. The system here is elite, so we can check that box off. The task that remains is first pinpointing down who the slot receiver will be and then two assessing how good that player’s profile is given the new QB. The former is a lot more important than the latter in my opinion.
Another player to know is former Marshall WR Caleb Coombs, who is 5’11″, 190 lbs., and averaged about 6.7 PPG in 1PPR formats for the Thundering Herd last season. He’ll probably also be competing for the slot receiver role, but it seems that Hayes and Tucker are the primary two vying for the coveted role.
We are currently looking at Marshall transfer Cam Fancher as the presumed starter at QB. Fancher is better than people think. In my opinion, he didn’t really get a good chance to show himself with the Herd.
But we should also keep in mind that when I made that Wester article last year, FAU’s 2023 starting QB Casey Thompson wasn’t even on the roster yet. So, keep in mind that the offseason could still bring new names (both at WR and QB).
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