Less than five minutes into his college debut, West Virginia receiver Jovon Durante skied high above a Georgia Southern defender to secure his first collegiate catch for a 47-yard touchdown.
Early in its first game of the 2015 season, one of West Virginia’s main question marks heading into the Mountaineers season started to be addressed. Replacing NFL draft picks Kevin White and Mario Alford at the receiver position was one of the potential potholes standing between West Virginia and success heading into the season, but Durante and Shelton Gibson combined for six receptions for 251 yards and two touchdowns in the Mountaineers’ season-opening win.
"Jovon played outstanding, and I’m glad he got the nerves out of the way," said senior receiver Jordan Thompson, who had three receptions for 30 yards in the opener. "Now, it comes down to improving. He has a lot of things to improve on even though he had a great game. He has to improve on catching the ball, running routes and different releases, but other than that, he did a phenomenal job."
Now, if Dana Holgorsen’s team can get continued improvement from that duo -- and the rest of the West Virginia receivers -- the Mountaineers' passing game will be in good hands in 2015.
"Before we can talk about consistency, we have to talk about improvement," Holgorsen said. "What was impressive about those young guys at receiver is that they made catches. Those catches weren’t easy. It’s not like they were running scot-free, catching it in stride and prancing into the end zone. They were contested catches. It’s exciting for me to watch those two guys make contested catches."
Durante, a true freshman, finished with three receptions for 121 yards and one touchdown and Gibson, a sophomore, had three receptions for 130 yards and another score. Both receivers showed explosive speed to get open deep along with the competitiveness and ball skills to provide a deep threat to open up the defense. Yet the Mountaineers know they will need better timing as a overall unit to completely replace the big plays and production of White and Alford.
"I’m not worried about consistency at this point," Holgorsen said. "I told (quarterback) Skyler (Howard) if his timing is better with these guys, and if their technique on the route was a little sharper, then we will see uncontested catches where they can just run into the end zone -- like we saw last year -- as opposed to the timing being off and they catch it and get tackled. It is still about improving with the offense. It’s about timing, and it’s about improving.”
