How Indiana WR Elijah Sarratt Mastered the Jump Ball: 'Best in College Football'

MIAMI — There’s a common understanding that Indiana football cornerback D’Angelo Ponds doesn’t allow receptions. Not in spring practice. Not in fall camp. Rarely, if ever, in games.

But that’s with an exception. Nobody, not even the Hoosiers’ All-American corner, is safe from senior receiver Elijah Sarratt when the ball is in the air and there’s a play to be made.

“I've definitely been on the bad end of that one,” Ponds told Indiana Hoosiers On SI on Saturday. “That guy can make extremely good catches. That's a guy who is going to make crazy catches on you. Definitely been on the bad side of that one before.”

Sarratt is nicknamed “Waffle House” because he’s always open. Even when he’s covered, Indiana coach Curt Cignetti said last season, he finds a way to come down with the football.

It’s not happenstance. It’s not luck. It’s not a one-off. It’s merely Sarratt, a back-shoulder, jump-ball specialist who turns 50/50 passes into game-changing plays far more often than math suggests possible.

“He's the best in college football doing it, in my opinion,” redshirt junior receiver Omar Cooper Jr. told Indiana Hoosiers On SI. “There's nobody else out there that's better than him. I mean, it's really hard, especially with defenders all on you, sometimes holding you, grabbing you.”

Sarratt made a soaring, contested grab through contact for the go-ahead touchdown in the third quarter of Indiana’s Big Ten Championship Game win over Ohio State on Dec. 6. He made an anxiety-relieving back-shoulder catch on a third down in the first quarter against Oregon in the Peach Bowl that gave Indiana offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan belief the Hoosiers were “going to be okay.”

Before the nation saw Sarratt jumping overtop corners and hauling in tight-window contested catches on the sideline, Shanahan saw it on his film from FCS school Saint Francis (Pa.), and Ponds saw it in practice at James Madison.

Only a few weeks into his first fall practice as a freshman in 2023, Ponds watched as Sarratt, a sophomore, leapt above one of the Dukes’ cornerbacks and made a head-turning reception.

“I was like 'Oh, that's guy's different,'” Ponds said.

Jump balls have long been Sarratt’s strong suit, even dating back to high school. It’s not all nuance, not all training — he owes the roots of his success to natural-born talent.

“I just naturally have been good at it and been able to adjust my body and stuff,” Sarratt said. “Just blessed with that ability.”

Sarratt has, however, turned natural ability into perhaps the nation’s best ball skills through time-on-task and skill development.

During practice, while Indiana works through special teams periods, Sarratt sneaks off to the side and catches passes from the Hoosiers’ quarterbacks. After the session ends, Sarratt catches at least 100 additional passes. He doesn’t count the final number, but he knows it’s an abundance, and he merely wants to accumulate as many receptions as he can.

Sixth-year senior receiver E.J. Williams Jr. attributed Sarratt’s success to the focus and activity with which he practices. It’s about repetition, Williams said.

“He's really, really good when the ball's in the air,” Williams told Indiana Hoosiers On SI on Saturday. “He has real strong hands, and just really good at creating that separation on the back shoulders. And (on) a jump ball, going and taking the ball in the air, for sure.”

Sarratt doesn’t do many hand-strengthening exercises. He merely catches footballs, time and time again, to the point where his hands are so strong, so reliable, he’s able to finish through contact at an inconceivable rate.

“Super strong hands,” Shanahan said. “I mean, that's his game. That's who he is. He's kind of built and has done that over and over and over again making those kind of plays for us over the years.”

Several of Sarratt’s teammates described him as strong-handed — something Ponds said translates to other aspects of his life.

“I don't know if you shook his hand, but his hand is huge,” Ponds said. “That's probably what makes his hands so strong.”

Yet for as terrific as Sarratt has proven to be at the catch point, part of the magic behind his contested catch brilliance happens before the pass arrives.

The Stafford, Va., native has mastered the art of showing his hands late, or waiting until the last possible second to raise his hands and catch the ball. Such a move, Cooper said, makes it difficult for defensive backs to know when the ball is arriving, which leads to penalties and prevents the cornerback from getting his arms into passing windows.

Defensive backs are taught to play through the receivers’ hands. Rather than turning their heads and finding the ball, corners react to when, and where, the pass-catcher positions his hands.

Showing late hands is a difficult skill to teach. Sarratt merely has a knack, an instinct, for when to extend his arms — and those innate sensations paired with quality coaching has molded Sarratt into one of the nation’s most deceptive wideouts.

“As a receiver, if you can wait for the ball to be as close as possible to you to flash your hands and pluck it out the air, that'd be the best benefit to you,” Williams said. “And Elijah does a really, really, really good job of that.”

Sarratt practices late hands, too, but he also preaches it. During off-season workouts, he’ll watch Cooper run routes and catch passes over his shoulder. While the ball spirals toward Cooper, Sarratt enters coaching mode.

“He'll always yell out, ‘Late hands, late hands,’” Cooper said. “So, it's just something he's telling himself in his head the whole off-season, practicing it and making sure he's doing it as much as he can.”

Sarratt leads the FBS with 15 receiving touchdowns despite missing two full games and three quarters of another in November. He’s the FBS’s active leader with 44 receiving scores, and he’s caught touchdown passes in 10 of his 13 appearances this season. His ball skills and body control prove especially beneficial when the field condenses in the redzone.

Entering Monday night’s College Football Playoff National Championship Game against No. 10 Miami, Sarratt has the Hurricanes’ full respect, and attention, in large part for the challenges his strong, late hands present.

“That's what the elite receivers do — when the ball is in the air, they find the ball extremely well,” Miami cornerbacks coach Zac Etheridge told Indiana Hoosiers On SI. “He’s got a catch radius. When the ball’s in the air, he knows when to show late hands, when to get his hands up.

“That's the biggest thing that separates (him). His 50/50 balls are unbelievable, because he does a great job with that and tracking the ball and knowing when to put his hands up.”

Indiana’s secondary anticipates Miami’s defensive backs will experience much of what the Hoosiers’ back end sees each day in practice.

Junior safety Amare Ferrell, a two-year starter for Indiana, said Sarratt puts his heart into every single practice, and the results show each time he steps on the field and finishes a catch few others can.

Sarratt, oftentimes, is well-covered. Much to the frustration of opposing corners, he still, oftentimes, comes down with the ball.

“He’s Mr. Consistent,” Ferrell told Indiana Hoosiers On SI. “Like, every time we throw him a pass, he’s going to catch it, and we know that, and he knows that. I would definitely say he's a pro. He wants to be great. He wants the ball in those big moments.

“He wants the ball when a corner's draped all over him, because he trusts his abilities to make that catch every single time.”

Indiana quarterbacks coach Chandler Whitmer, who earned a rookie minicamp invite from the Philadelphia Eagles in 2015 and spent time as an NFL assistant coach from 2021–24, validated Ferrell’s belief that Sarratt has a professional future.

Whitmer noted he doesn’t love comparisons, because each player is unique and shouldn’t be put into a box. But Whitmer sees similarities between Sarratt and Tampa Bay Buccaneers receiver Mike Evans, a six-time Pro Bowl selection, in how they always put themselves in advantageous positions for back-shoulder throws and maneuver to a spot between the defender and the ball.

“He's a quarterback's best friend,” Whitmer told Indiana Hoosiers On SI. “He knows how to get open.”

And Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza knows how to find him. There’s teaching required to throw back-shoulder passes, said Whitmer, who smiled and said he’d rather not share what that contains. But much of it comes down to reps, chemistry and two high-level players making high-level plays.

Now, as the Hoosiers ready for the first national championship game in program history, they expect Sarratt to continue rising to the occasion. They expect him to score touchdowns. They expect him to make a “crazy catch,” Whitmer said, because it’s what he does in practice, what he does in games, and who he is as a player.

When Sarratt made a contested catch against Oregon that drew gasps from fans inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium, he returned to the sideline to a warm, nickname-filled greeting from teammates who were happy, but unsurprised — after all, Williams said, they see him do crazier things each day in practice.

“We'll be like, ‘Waffle House, it’s easy money,’” Williams said of the sideline’s reaction to Sarratt’s big plays. “He always does this.”

Sarratt will be one of Indiana’s four game captains Monday night, which marks the culmination of a four-year college journey that started in the FCS, transitioned to the Sun Belt and will end on the sport’s biggest stage.

Sarratt has lived up to his Waffle House moniker. There’s another adage factoring into Monday night’s equation: Big time players make big time plays in big time games.

Indiana has no doubt Sarratt, strong hands, elite instincts and all, will live up to that moniker, too, when rubber meets the road in Miami Gardens.

“He's the man,” Whitmer said.