Week 6 - Top Return on Investment Wide Receivers for FBS

Time to Get Serious

Halfway into the college football season and now it's time to get serious.  Previously, we included all NFL Player Draft eligible FBS wide receivers in our Top 20 Return on Investment ("ROI") list (If you need a refresher on what goes into ROI, click here).  Going forward, only those 4 years removed from high school will be considered.  This would include seniors, graduate students, players who took a redshirt season and are not "redshirt juniors" and players who had to suffer the idiocy of the NCAA "transfer and waste a year" rule. 

Broken Record Time

As always, ROI is an efficiency measure and should not be used as the only tool in evaluating top receivers.  ROI is best used to screen out names a scout might miss so that they can take a closer look at why that particular receiver  has been getting far more with far less.  

FBS Top 20

Eligible players collected receptions through October 7 within 1 standard deviation of the average for the top 150 top reception yard WRs

Top Guns - Tyre Brady and Cedrick Wilson retained their 1-2 spots, respectively and, along with James Washington, the top 3 have made our list every week so far this season (first list was released after Week 3).

Others who have also been mainstays on the Top 20 are  Darren Carrington and Vic Wharton III.

New Jack City - Because of the re-structuring of the list (detailed above), there are many new additions.   Here are some a few of them:

• Thomas Owens of Florida International - An All-Conference USA honorable mention in 2016, after leading his team in Receiving Yards with 652 over 12 games.  Now that former teammate Jonnu Smith has moved on to the NFL, Owens has exploded for 74 receiving yards per game compared to 54.3 last year.  In high school, Owens was a quarterback and also was a multi sport athlete, averaging 12.6 ppg on the hardwood. Although the team has scored more than 17 points only once this season, he has the ability to pick up yards and break open a game anytime. 
• Daesean Hamilton of PSU - Hamilton is disciplined.  He already earned a bachelor's degree and is working on his second.  His work ethic must have something to do with the fact that both his parents are United States Marines. Family is huge with this kid and the "why" truly drives his success.  This solid foundation allowed him to ball out, in high school showing out with two-time All-State (VA) Honorable Mentions, rated as high as a 4 star prospect. He finished up 2016 with a statline of 34/506/1 and already has build up his numbers to a solid 22/366/4.
• Teo Redding of Bowling Green - Having had to sit behind current NFL WRs NY Giant Roger Lewis and KC Chief Gehrig Dieter, Redding crept up the depth chart behind heir apparent Scott Miller last year once he had a chance to increase his playing time. Although he got lapped in yards last year by Miller who went 74/968/10 compared to Redding's 2016 stat line of 31/423/3, so far this year Redding is the better man with over 100 more yards and 1 more touchdown than Miller on 4 fewer receptions.  A team captain in high school, Redding earned first team All-State honor (MI) while also competing in basketball.
• Cody Thompson of Toledo - A favorite under the radar pick for the upcoming NFL Player Draft, Boombearjr has been watching Thompson for years.  More than half way there, he appeared a shoo-in to break 1,000 yards for the second consecutive year but, alas, he's suffered a broken leg and will likely miss the rest of the season. A high school quarterback who also played basketball, Cody found success on short, intermediate and deep routes.  We will wait to see if he enters the draft or petitions for a 5th year.  Not sure another year at Toledo would do much to boost his draft status if he can get a redshirt so I expect him to toss his hat in for the NFL. 

TD Machines - While the average qualifying WR in our analysis score a TD every 10.4 receptions, the Top 20 averaged one every 9.4 receptions.  Of the qualifiers, Anthony Miller of Memphis continues his awesome performance by scoring every 5 receptions.  Five of our Top ROI WRs (Hamilton, Washington, Dowlling, Pierson-El and Grayson) are in the top 10 overall for TD scoring rate, all at least finding the endzone every 6.2 receptions. 

Don't Forget the Gravy! -  The average WR for the 2016 combine had an average simple body density measure (that is, weight in lbs/height in inches) of 2.79 lbs/inch.  Some of our Top 20 players are just not taking advantage of the all you can eat dining plan on campus:

• Only 6 of 20 are above weight while another 3 are less than 1% off.  More than half are going to figure out how to dismiss those pesky press corners at a below average playing weight. 
• Doni Dowling is 8% larger than average but measures of 3.00 lbs/inch are not uncommon among NFL WRs.  
• Cedrick Wilson, Mark Chapman and Teo Redding are 10% undersized given this ratio. To be clear, the players have skill, they are just a bit thinner than last year's combine attendees.  

 Keep a look out for the Top ROI FCS, DII and DIII players coming up soon!