Is Boise State’s unproven wide receiver room ready for Pac-12 play?

Boise State position unit grades: Wide receiver

Boise State's Quinton Brown. | Boise State Athletics

Boise State Broncos On SI is awarding grades to each position group on offense, defense and special teams heading into the summer.

We have already broken down the quarterbacks and running backs and are now moving on to a largely unproven Boise State wide receiver room. 

Wide receiver 

Maddux Madsen unquestionably took a step back last year, but the veteran quarterback was also let down by his wide receivers. 

Boise State receivers dropped 29 passes during the 2026 season for a drop rate of 15.6 percent. Both marks led the way among Mountain West teams. 

Madsen’s top three targets from last season—Latrell Caples, Chris Marshall and Chase Penry—have all moved on, creating plenty of opportunities for new receivers to step up. 

Sixth-year senior Ben Ford caught 21 passes for 325 yards and a team-best five touchdowns in 2025 before tearing his ACL. Ford is expected to be ready for Boise State’s Week 1 matchup with Oregon. 

“(Ford) has obviously been in this offense,” first-year receivers coach Alvis Whitted told local media during spring practice. “So if he sees something, he’ll continue to try to uphold that standard. He’ll correct a guy if he sees something that needs to be corrected, and I give him that autonomy because this is his team, too.”

Cam Bates has 26 catches for 369 yards and four total touchdowns in 27 career games with the Broncos. Bates is a junior speedster with big-play ability. 

Quinton Brown, another speed demon, played in all 14 games last season as a true freshman and notched six catches for 122 yards and two touchdowns. 

The Broncos signed two transfer portal wideouts with a history of production: Darren Morris (Southern University) and Akeem Wright (De Anza College). 

In three seasons at Southern, Morris caught 77 passes for 1,256 yards and nine touchdowns. Wright, who is also a senior in 2026, hauled in 59 passes for 1,173 yards and 12 touchdowns last year at the junior college level.  

“They’ve done some fantastic things in practice, and obviously it’s a learning experience for them,” Whitted said of the two transfers. “They’ve come in from different offenses, different programs where certain things may not have been as detailed as they are here.”

Last but not least, true freshmen Terrious Favors (Carver High School, Georgia) and Rasean Jones (Rocky Mountain High School, Idaho) are both potential stars in 2026 and beyond. 

Final unit grade: C

Closing analysis: The wide receiver room has plenty of potential, but the group lacks experience at the Pac-12 level. If one or two of the newcomers emerge as a go-to threat, the wide receiver midseason grade could easily be much higher.