The bolded part is the key in terms of the OL.
As for the young WRs, they had a COVID outbreak the same week Likens blew up the depth chart. Pope and Wiggins started playing better and had the jobs secure when the young guys finally came back. Of course, they cratered and now it's wide open again.
The staff opened up the WR competition heading into the UVA game in late October. Notably, Smith was available and dressed that game. Regardless, from there, Pope went 3 catches for 48 yards against UVA, had his best game of season the following week against NC State (6 catches for 97 yards and a TD), started to come back down to Earth against VT* (4 catches for 50 yards and a TD... caught the game winner, though, I'll give him that), and then
went 4 catches for 20 yards over the final three games of the season.
His boy Wiggins had a pedestrian effort against UVA (3 catches for 36 yards), a solid performance against NC State (77 yards and a TD), and possibly his best game of the season against VT* (8 catches for 106 yards, his season highs in both categories... but even then he dropped an easy slant that should have been a TD). Similar to his buddy Pope, Wiggins would go on to have
4 catches for 21 yards and a TD over the final three games of the season.
Smith was available to play and saw action in the final three games of the season, but got minimal snaps. Redding was available to play and saw action in the final two games of the season, but got minimal snaps. Meanwhile, Pope and Wiggins disappeared back into their typical bad habits those last 3 games.
Pope and Wiggins's jobs should have been wide open (again) heading into the OkSU game, as they had already demonstrated their combined 2-game performance was fools' gold and the only WR who had "secured" anything through his play was Harley. By the OkSU game, Pope had already had a ZERO catch performance against Duke, that he followed up with a 2 catch for 6 yards day against UNC. Meanwhile, Wiggins went 3 for 14 yards and a TD against Duke, and then had ZERO catches against UNC. And as we know, neither did much of anything against OkSU and they combined to have at least as many drops as catches (a not uncommon Wiggins/Pope 2020 statistic).
* Some of you may be tempted to absolve the coaching staff for continuing to play Pope and Wiggins after they somewhat showed up for the NC State and VT games. Before you put on your kneepads, let's keep things in perspective and remember that VT's pass defense was pretty bad last season. How bad? VT was ranked 107th in the country in passing yards allowed per game. And since we like to think COVID was a one-way street, VT was also out 11 players against us, include their starting CB, Jermaine Waller, after they'd already lost safety Nasir Peoples in the pre-season. NC State? They weren't as bad as VT, but were still ranked 76th in the country in passing yards allowed per game, so still in the bottom half.
