This video was taken at football practice Tuesday and includes Adam Decker, Brian Hoyer, Otis Wiley, Javon Ringer, and Justin Kershaw. Decker talks about his stop against Iowa Saturday, Hoyer and Wiley talk about being nationally ranked, and Ringer and Kershaw talk about playing Northwestern.
In college football, players come and go. They leave their mark on the field and in the record book, and some, if they’re lucky, go on to make their marks in the NFL. In many cases, programs struggle to find new players who can fill the shoes of their departed stars. But in the case of the wide receiver position at MSU, that has very rarely been a problem.
Prior to the 2008 NFL Draft, Rick Gosselin, an NFL columnist for the Dallas Morning News, dubbed MSU “Wide Receiver U.”
In looking back at the history of MSU’s wide receivers, there’s sufficient background validating that claim. Since 1965, there have been five former MSU wide receivers taken in the first round of the draft, as well as 23 overall. Since 1980, 15 Spartans wide outs have been drafted, with four going in the first round.
Although MSU players have been successful in getting drafted, becoming a solid contributor in the NFL is a whole different challenge.
According to former Spartan and current Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Derrick Mason, the ability to stay in the league multiple years and become a contributor is what sets MSU players apart in the professional ranks.
“I think it’s true, because if you look at the receivers over a 20-year span, we’ve had some very, very successful receivers, not only in college, but who also go onto the NFL and play and be successful,” Mason said of the Wide Receiver U tag.
“It’s a fair assessment because if you look at all the colleges, I think that we are the most dominant college in the world at that position. Not only at the college level, but also in the NFL.”
Setting the standard
When reminiscing about some of the first great wide receivers to wear green and white, former MSU player and coach Henry Bullough, who coached the Spartans from 1959-69, can go on and on – Dorne Dibble, Dave Kaiser and Bob Carey, just to name a view.
Although he said they were great receivers in their own right, one who clearly stood out from the rest was Gene Washington, a 1965 All-American who had 1,857 yards and 16 touchdowns in his three-year career.
“Eugene could get up and get it, see, and when you’re talking about a guy who’s a hurdle star, you’re talking about a guy who can run,” Bullough said of Washington, who doubled as a track star at MSU.
“A big guy like that at 6-foot-4, he could get up and down the field and he could run very well.”
A decade after Washington went to the NFL as a 1967 first round draft pick by Minnesota, Kirk Gibson came to MSU and overtook Washington in the MSU record books as statistically the best wide receiver in program history.
Also selected to the All-American team in 1978, Gibson, who went on to play Major League Baseball for 17 years, left MSU as the all-time leader with 2,347 receiving yards and 24 touchdowns.
Excellence continued
The years between 1983-89 saw perhaps MSU’s greatest consecutive string of wide receivers, as all four players who led MSU in receiving yards went on to successful NFL careers. Although Gibson had opted for a professional baseball career over the NFL, Daryl Turner (1984 second round), Mark Ingram (1987 first round), Andre Rison (1989 first round) and Courtney Hawkins (1992 second round) each experienced success on Sundays.
Turner set a Seattle Seahawks franchise record with 13 touchdowns in 1985, while Ingram won a Super Bowl with the New York Giants in 1991. Rison became one of the top receivers in NFL history, ending his career in the top 20 in receptions and yards and finishing 14th with 84 career touchdowns.
Hawkins, who spent nine seasons in the NFL with Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh, said the career of Rison, a fellow Flint native, played a big part in his decision to go to MSU.
“Honestly, yes,” Hawkins said.
“I watched Ingram and Turner and Rison, who went from Flint to MSU to the pros. Why not follow the path that he had already paved?”
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Current success
The success experienced by MSU wide receivers at the next level continued into the 1990s with Mason, Muhsin Muhammad and Plaxico Burress.
Muhammad, picked in 1996’s second round, and Mason, a fourth-round pick in 1997, have been the definition of steady during their NFL careers. Muhammad, now in his second stint with the Carolina Panthers, has had only three seasons in his 13-year career with fewer than 50 receptions.
Mason, a 12-year veteran with the Tennessee Titans and Ravens, had five consecutive 1,000-yard seasons from 2001-05.
Mason credits a big part of his success, as well as the success experienced by other MSU wide receivers, to the coaching he received at MSU.
“If you look at other colleges, they have receivers who are great in college but once they get into the NFL it’s like they fizzle out,” Mason said.
“Our receivers are taught technique by very good coaches … they coach technique, they know how to beat the defensive back, know how to read defenses and know how to run routes; it makes the learning curve a lot shorter.”
Although Mason and Muhammad have been considered solid, if not spectacular, NFL players throughout their careers, Burress has a chance to become the best wide receiver MSU ever produced.
The 31-year-old Burress, who was drafted No. 8 overall by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2000, has become one of the league’s premiere receivers — totaling over 7,500 yards and 78 touchdowns in nine seasons.
He also had the game-winning touchdown catch in Super Bowl XXLII when the New York Giants upset the then-undefeated New England Patriots.
Although Charles Rogers’ talent didn’t translate to the NFL, he became the highest drafted receiver when the Detroit Lions selected him second overall in 2003. While his career was cut short by injuries and off-the-field problems, Rogers became one of the best wide receivers in college football history during his time at MSU.
He is the only MSU player who’s won the Biletnikoff Award, given each year to college football’s best receiver, and his 27 career touchdowns are still tops in MSU history.
Devin Thomas became the most recent graduate of Wide Receiver U when the Washington Redskins drafted him in the second round (34th overall) of the 2008 NFL Draft.
2008 and beyond
Entering the 2008 season, fans and media alike wondered who would fill Thomas’ shoes, until sophomore Mark Dell quickly answered with a nine-reception, 202-yard performance in the season opener against California.
Knowing full well of the stars who came before him, Dell shied away from any notion that he could be MSU’s next great wide receiver. Despite coming to a school that he said is known in the recruiting world for its wide receiver history, Dell said there’s no added pressure of playing at Wide Receiver U.
“There’s a lot of tradition in the receiving corps coming out of Michigan State and we definitely try to keep the legacy we have going with the receivers we have now,” Dell said.
“We’re just trying to carry the legacy of every receiver who’s ever played here.”
So far Dell and redshirt freshman B.J. Cunningham have carried that legacy, becoming MSU’s two main receiving targets this season. Dell leads the team with 20 receptions for 443 yards and two touchdowns, while Cunningham has caught 15 passes for 278 yards.
With Dell and Cunningham, as well as freshmen Fred Smith and Keshawn Martin, the future continues to look bright for MSU, as current wide receivers look forward to the challenge of continuing MSU’s reign as Wide Receiver U.
“It’s great knowing that Michigan State is Wide Receiver U — I didn’t know that,” Cunningham said of MSU’s distinction. “It helps us out with NFL scouts and getting drafted, but now we’re going to have to prove it (here) and keep living up to it.”
