The writing is on the wall for change. From Manny today:
That could all change, though, in the coming weeks because the Hurricanes won’t be facing elite defenses as they have the past two weeks, and two young receivers who might be better equipped to fill the void — redshirt freshman Jeremiah Payton (6-1, 195) and true freshman Keyshawn Smith (6-1, 182) — have started to earn more playing time.
Offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee has definitely been looking for some help and he put out the bat signal Monday when
the coaching staff unveiled the team’s depth chart. All nine scholarship receivers were designated as starters — an open invitation for someone to emerge and become part of the solution.
“It’s been interesting,” Lashlee said of the development of some of his younger receivers. “(True freshman) Michael Redding started doing some good things early in the season, and then kind of just had some aggravating injuries that didn’t keep him from playing but probably slowed down that progression.
“Same thing with Jeremiah Payton. I thought in the first game of the year he showed some really good some things and then had to miss a couple of weeks. So that kind of slowed him down. Now, we’ve got him back. And Keyshawn Smith, he’s shown he can really run. He had a really nice deep route last week where he ran by the guy and it went just right off the fingertips. It was borderline (pass) interference. So we were really, really close there.
“He can stretch the field. Those guys have length. My hope is all three of them really continue to develop into more of a threat to stretch the field. Keyshawn can run. Jeremiah is really long and Michael’s really dependable. Hopefully, we can keep those guys consistent in the practice rotation, in the game rotation to where … hopefully, the game will start to slow down. Like I said, sometimes a guy makes one or two really good catches and all of a sudden the light clicks on and it kind of opens up the floodgates. That’s kind of what we’re looking forward to.”
