Once Notre Dame’s starting wide receivers from last season left for the NFL, focus shifted to the more prominent roles senior-to-be Torii Hunter Jr. and rising sophomore Equanimeous St. Brown will play in 2016. After spring practice began in mid-March, junior-to-be Corey Holmes started taking first-team reps, and tight end Aliz’e Jones began to cross-train at the W-receiver position.
But the Irish offense still has a 6-foot-3½, 225-pound sophomore-to-be at their disposal in Miles Boykin.
The four-star high school prospect didn’t garner as much attention as his classmates, St. Brown and Jones. He worked through the initial transition to college football, and adjusted how he used his size against smaller cornerbacks.
And during that process, one Irish W-receiver, who’s future on the team is unclear, helped Boykin through his developmental process as a freshman.
“Corey Robinson’s been a huge part of just helping me grow and be part of the offense, and so now even though Corey’s kind of hurt he’s been with me,” Boykin said. “I made some mistakes this spring, but I think I’m getting better.”
Boykin’s personal assessment is similar to that of coach Brian Kelly, who recognizes the progress the Chicago native’s shown in understanding his role in the offense.
It’s now a matter of stringing his strong performances together, and eliminating the occasional lapses that cause Boykin to drop passes or run the wrong routes. And when he overcomes the final hurdle, Boykin will enter the rotation.
First, he has to demonstrate his effectiveness to the coaching staff on a consistent basis.
“He’s at that threshold now where he knows what he’s doing,” Kelly said. “He knows what the expectations are, and now it’s consistency, ball-catching consistency and route running. He’s just at that phase now where now it’s not too big for him anymore. He’s not wide-eyed.
“Now it’s just about how can he be consistent as a football player, and when he gets to that level of consistency you’ll see more and more of him. He’s not consistent enough. When he does get to that level, he’ll play more football.”
In order to earn more playing time, Boykin will use some of the traits he picked up as a high school basketball standout at Providence Catholic (Ill.). He feeds on the mano-a-mano competition between a wide receiver and cornerback in the same way he relished one-on-one matchups in basketball.
Basketball taught him how to take advantage of his size, but trying to overpower cornerbacks like Cole Luke and Devin Butler was more difficult than Boykin originally anticipated.
“Knowing how to use (size) is the difference between knowing how to use it in the high school level, and knowing how to use it in college,” he said. “People are stronger and you just gotta fight through that, like running through friction and going up and getting balls and being physical with them.”
Boykin’s greatest value to the offense could be in the red zone, where his size lends itself to someone who could bully cornerbacks in man-coverage on fade routes, similar to the way former tight end Tyler Eifert and wideout Michael Floyd did.
But before he will have that chance, he needs to master the most difficult part of the transition to college: understanding the playbook in its entirety. In high school, there were only a few signals that wide receivers had to know. Now, the sophomore-to-be is required to know four or five—and he has to identify those before he can even receive the play.
Boykin’s growing more comfortable, but he hasn’t quite reached the level that’s expected of him. He believes that time will come soon, though.
“I’m not where I want to be yet,” he said, “but I still have all of the summer and all of fall camp to get there, hopefully before the first game. So I think I’m definitely making the right strides.”
