Scouting Combine Receivers: Lamb, Jeudy Top Class
Part 4 of our six-part preview includes the top receivers in this year’s draft class, Oklahoma’s CeeDee Lamb and Alabama’s Jerry Jeudy.
Jauan Jennings, Tennessee (6-3, 208): Jennings caught 146 passes for 2,153 yards and 18 touchdowns. Each of those figures rank in the top five in school history. His biggest year was his final year, when he caught 59 balls for 969 yards (16.4 average) and eight touchdowns. He also tossed two touchdown passes (one each as a freshman and sophomore) and made an interception on defense (as a sophomore).
Jennings arrived at Tennessee as a quarterback but moved to receiver as a freshman. "I thought I could play (at quarterback) this year," Jennings told the Times Free-Press. "Josh Dobbs, he's earned the position. I didn't want to sit down on the sideline. I wanted to seriously explore my talents and see what I could do. Until I got here, I'd never played receiver before, but it's just something with my talents and skill set, it kind of is natural.” He suffered a season-ending wrist injury in the 2017 opener. That was the least of his problems, though. He was kicked off the team late that season following a profanity-laced video targeting the former coaching staff. “Being able to have that second chance, you kind of realize this game can be taken away from you in the blink of an eye,” Jennings told the Associated Press in October. Jeremy Pruitt was hired as coach in December 2017 and brought Jennings back. “I asked a lot of people in the building what they thought, and most of them that said, ‘I wouldn’t let him come back,’ they don’t work here anymore,” Pruitt said. “The people that said to let him come back, they all work here.” He was suspended for the first half of this year’s bowl game following an ugly incident. His nickname is “Juice Man.” He explained: “Every day I wake up and come in with juice. That’s something you’ve got to possess. You can’t just go out there and buy juice, you’ve got to own it. Ever since I’ve been here, I come up here with large amounts of energy and it’s never changed, so I’m juice man.” Sister Alexis Jennings played basketball at Kentucky and South Carolina, collecting all-SEC honors as a senior with Gamecocks in 2018-19.
Jerry Jeudy, Alabama* (6-1, 192): Jeudy caught 159 passes for 2,741 yards and 26 touchdowns in his three seasons. He caught 68 balls for 1,315 yards and 14 touchdowns in 15 games as a sophomore, when he won the Biletnikoff Award as the nation’s top receiver, and 77 balls for 1,163 yards and 10 touchdowns in 13 games as a junior, when he was a Biletnikoff finalist.
Having announced his intentions to turn pro, he played in the Citrus Bowl, anyway, and destroyed Michigan with six catches for 204 yards and an 85-yard touchdown. “I’ve played football all my life,” Jeudy explained of why he played. “I made the decision to play with my teammates. It’s a brotherhood. It’s been that way since I started here as a freshman. I can’t just sit out there and be watching my team play even if I’m a first round draft pick. I wanted to go to war with my brothers. I’ve been there the whole season. I love playing football, so I just wanted to come out here and compete with my brothers.”
Jeudy plays for his sister. When he was a five-star senior receiver at Deerfield Beach (Fla.) High School, his 7-year-old sister died. “I swear I’m going to make it for you and mommy,” he posted on Twitter at the time. He used to play neighborhood football games with and against Lamar Jackson. He remembers getting juked badly by Jackson. “It was on the street, like a small little street, (where) if you’re on the grass, you’re going to get hit, (and) if you’re on concrete, they’re not going to hit you. So, it’s a real small space, (and) having a small space helps you out with knowing how to juke and stuff.” He had an 81-yard touchdown vs. Missouri. Afterward on Twitter, he urged other cornerbacks to press him at the line. "They'll probably say I'm pretty slow, but when you get close to me, you'll see that speed,” he told AL.com. He starred on the field and buckled down in the classroom, too, with a straight-As report card at Deerfield (Fla.) High School. “He’s got plans, he’s got reservations in his mind to be one of the best when it’s all said and done,” his high school coach told the Associated Press in 2018. “That explains why he works so hard and why he’s so focused.”
Collin Johnson, Texas (6-6, 220): Johnson was the big man on campus. He caught 188 passes for 2,624 yards and 15 touchdowns in four seasons. As a junior, he caught 68 passes for 985 yards (14.5 average) and seven touchdowns. That includes eight catches for 177 yards in the Big 12 title game vs. Oklahoma. His senior year was limited to seven games with a hamstring injury, and he reeled in 38 balls for 559 yards and three scores.
A star receiver with obvious attributes, he never demanded the ball. “If you ask any receiver all over the nation, they’re going to want the ball,” Johnson told the Houston Chronicle. “So obviously I want the ball. But I can only control what I can control and that’s when they throw me the ball I’ve got to do everything I can to make a play and put the team in the best position to win games.”
He has the genes. His father, Johnnie, was a two-time Texas All-American defensive back, a College Football Hall of Famer and a first-round draft pick by the Rams in 1980 who had a 10-year NFL career. "I always give him a hard time how he couldn't guard me and things like that, but he's not having any of that," Collin told TexasSports.com. "In all due respect, he was a phenomenal player here, he's a phenomenal person and I look up to him. Hopefully I can follow in his footsteps and at the same time not be in his shadow, just be my own person."
Moreover, an uncle, Bobby Johnson, played defensive back at Texas, and his mom, Julie, is a former actor and cheerleader for the Los Angeles Rams. His brother, Kirk, played running back for Texas and his sister, Camille, competes in the javelin on Texas’ track and field team. His brother, who was a senior in 2019, had his career derailed by injuries. "My brother is one of the strongest individuals I know," Collin told the Houston Chronicle. "To go through all of those injuries and still basically have the positive mindset he has now is unreal. I can't take credit for encouraging him. My dad can't take credit for encouraging him. It's just simply on Kirk.
Juwan Johnson, Oregon (6-4, 231): Johnson caught 81 passes for 1,123 yards and two touchdowns in three seasons with Penn State and 30 passes for 467 yards and four touchdowns in eight games as a senior graduate transfer with the Ducks.
Oregon was the New Jersey native’s dream school. “My mom, at the time, was like, ‘No, that’s too far,’” Johnson told NBC Sports before the season. “Now I’m sort of a man on my own and paving my way, writing my own story. So I came out here and wanted to live out my childhood dream and play for Oregon.” After the season, he told the Daily Emerald: “Throughout this whole year, it’s been tough, but it’s been adventurous and it’s been awesome. All I can do is smile.” Part of the “tough” part was tragedy. Right about the time he arrived at Oregon, his father died of a heart attack. On Mother’s Day, he sent his mom a message: “Good morning, mother, happy Mother’s Day,” Johnson said. “I want to say that I love you and that I wish I could be there for you. I know it’s been a rough one with me not being there and my father passing, your husband passing, and just a lot of financial issues going on. I know it’s hard right now, but I know within a year or so things are going to change dramatically. And I’m so excited for what’s about to come for us, for the family, us spiritually and I just can’t wait for it to unfold.”
Tyler Johnson, Minnesota (6-2, 205): Johnson piled up a four-year total of 213 receptions for 3,305 yards (15.5 average) and 33 touchdowns. Most of the damage came as a junior (78 catches, 1,169 yards, 12 touchdowns) and senior (86 catches, 1,318 yards, 13 touchdowns). He was all-Big Ten first-team in each of those final two seasons. At one point, he scored in seven consecutive games, and he was MVP of the Outback Bowl to close his career by riddling Auburn with 12 catches for 204 yards.
Johnson could have entered the draft last year but wanted to set an example for his four younger siblings and the people of his hometown of Minneapolis. “It will help them to understand and realize that getting a degree is very important,” he told the Star-Tribune. “It means a lot to me knowing I’ve got a big impact on a lot of people.” Johnson almost literally saved Minneapolis North High School – the school, not just the athletic program – through his domination at quarterback. “It started with him,” North High football coach Charles Adams told the Star-Tribune. “Now we have transformed to a mind-set of, ‘Why not us?’ We’re going to get to the state championship. We’re going to do everything that everyone else says they can do. It doesn’t matter where we’re from. We know what we can do.”
CeeDee Lamb, Oklahoma* (6-2, 195): In three seasons, Lamb caught 173 passes for 3,292 yards and 32 touchdowns. His final two seasons were for 60-plus catches, 1,100-plus yards and double-digits touchdowns, highlighted by 62 grabs for 1,327 yards and 14 scores last year, when he was a finalist for the Biletnikoff Award. He had four catches for 119 yards vs. LSU in the national semifinals. “He’s one of the best receivers we’ve seen,” LSU coach Ed Orgeron said. “We’ve faced some really good receivers. We see some really good receivers every day in practice. But he’s different. Yards after the catch from this guy are phenomenal. You’re going to have to cover one-on-one. You just can’t put a safety over the top of him and stop Jalen Hurts all day. You have to mix it up. You can’t give them the same thing every time.”
Lamb was born about an hour away from Baton Rouge, La., and grew up an LSU fan but the family was forced to move to Houston following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. That’s not the only hardship in his life. He wears a “32” necklace in honor of an uncle who died in 2016 at age 42; Chester Ramirez wore No. 32, and Lamb wore No. 3 in high school and No. 2 at Oklahoma. When Lamb was 14, his stepfather was shot and killed. A cousin died of lupus. “His story is truly remarkable,” Darrick Reed, a youth coach, told OUDaily. “We all knew he was going to be a special player, but to see where he is today… it brings tears to my eyes.”
His elusiveness was born on the playground. “Back in Louisiana, we’d just grab rocks and throw them at each other and if you get hit, you get hit.” Between his freshman and sophomore seasons, he added about 30 pounds. “So I could run through arm tackles,” Lamb told the Norman Transcript. “It happened a lot of times last year, where I felt like I could just run through them, but I didn’t have enough leg strength. That’s been a major part of my [workouts], getting my legs right.” Another reason for his success is being coachable. “We always try to coach our best players the hardest,” coach Lincoln Riley told the Oklahoman. “Sometimes guys say they want that, but then they don’t really want that. He’s been on a constant climb to improve. You saw it in spring ball. We’ve talked about it a bunch, but the way he’s changed his body. He’s just continued to get better and better.” His first name is Cedarian; a youth football coach coined CeeDee. “I feel like CeeDee is what I am now. My mom calls me ‘Cedarian’ when I’m in trouble. I like to keep it that way.”
Kalija Lipscomb, Vanderbilt (6-1, 201): Lipscomb caught 198 passes for 2,356 yards (11.9 average) and 22 touchdowns in his career. All three of those figures rank in the top 10 in program history. His junior season was his best, with 87 receptions, 916 yards (10.5 average) and nine scores. That season included a career-high 11 catches vs. Notre Dame. However, he caught only 47 passes as a senior as Vandy’s offense suffered through a dismal season. He also averaged 9.7 yards as a punt returner and 6.2 yards on carries.
“I’m just trying to show that I have a complete game,” Lipscomb told NOLA.com at the Senior Bowl. “A lot of people look at me as just a slot (receiver), so I want to show that I can navigate and run those routes and operate within those zones, but I also had a pretty good catch on a go ball today, so I also want to show that I can play outside if I need to.” The New Orleans native fled to Houston with his mom when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005. “It was different because it was – just being a kid, what all do you have? You have your family and your friends,” Lipscomb told the school athletics site. “So when Katrina happens, we leave, friends leave, everybody leaves and I’m in Houston now and I don’t know anybody. I’m already a shy kid so it’s a little different. We stayed in a hotel for a year and then come back and not very many people came back to the city. When I came back to the city, those kids and those friends that I knew they weren’t there any more. So it was basically a new start.” His games were a big deal at a barbershop. The barbershop is owned by his father. “I hated to get my hair cut, but on some days I would spend four or five hours there, just talking to people,” Lipscomb told the school newspaper. “Everyone’s really close, and it was always a good time.”
Austin Mack, Ohio State (6-2, 215): Mack finished his career with seasons of 24 receptions as a sophomore, 26 as a junior and 27 as a senior. His three-year totals were 79 receptions for 1,050 yards (13.3 average) and six touchdowns. Injuries set back his career, including foot surgery as a junior and a hamstring issue as a senior.
Mack is president of Redefining Athletic Standards, a student organization he founded with another group of students to discuss issues on campus and create events to help them to be defined by more than sports. “I’d say it’s very important, it’s a big passion of mine,” Mack told Lettermen Row. “We have done a lot of good things in the past year. For me personally, I’ve tried to eliminate a lot of distractions going into this last season knowing it’s my last season. I’m very involved and want to keep that up, knowing that is part of my legacy once I leave here.” Mack was a hot recruit coming out of Fort Wayne, Ind. – Indiana offered him a scholarship as a freshman – but he is more than a football player. He’s trying to spread his RAS to other schools. “I want to be someone different,” he told the Columbus Dispatch, “to prove to people that you don’t just have to be a football player — that you can be a starter, that you can do your dreams and make it to the next level, but still have a different definition other than you’re (uniform) number or whatever.”
Introducing the 55 Receivers
Part 1: Aiyuk, Bowden did it all
Part 2: Duvernay, Edwards and Gandy-Golden
Part 3: LSU's Jefferson among TD machines
Part 4: Lamb, Jeudy top receiver class
Part 6: Ruggs, Shenault produce big plays
Introducing the 30 Running Backs
Part 1 includes Cam Akers, Eno Benjamin and J.K. Dobbins
Part 2 includes Clyde Edwards-Helaire and Zack Moss
Part 3 includes D’Andre Swift and Jonathan Taylor
Introducing the 17 Quarterbacks
Part 1 includes Burrow, Eason, Fromm
