Joe Wilkins Jr. isn’t the most physically imposing presence on a football field.
He might stand 6-2 with a bump on his head. He might weigh 200 pounds if he spent a week straight eating fast food burgers and french fries or a month heavy lifting and downing protein shakes. The latter is more up his alley anyway.
According to the Notre Dame roster, the senior wide receiver is 6-1½, 195. Pound for pound, though, he might be one of the Irish’s most impressive players.
Notre Dame’s position groups hold an annual offseason conditioning competition. The amount of weight and repetitions put forth in lifts and times recorded in running-based agility drills generate a certain amount of points. All of the pass catchers — tight ends included — go head-to-head in their respective group.
Wide receivers typically do not fare well in that grouping. It makes sense considering they’re up against 6-4½, 251-pound athletic freak shows like sophomore tight end Michael Mayer. Even freshman tight end Mitchell Evans is roughly that same size.
Third-round 2021 NFL Draft pick Tommy Tremble, for example, fared better than 80 percent of the tight ends who participated in the NFL combine in five key athletic measuring sticks; the 10- and 20-yard splits, 40-yard dash, vertical jump and broad jump. And he did it all at 6-3⅜ and 241 pounds.
Long story short, a combination of strength and speed results in more points. Senior wide receivers Wilkins, Braden Lenzy, Avery Davis and Kevin Austin Jr. took it upon themselves to make sure the tight ends wouldn't win this time.
“This summer, it was, ‘Screw that,’” Lenzy said. “I wanted first, AD wanted first. Joe wanted first. It went Joe, AD, me then Kev. AD, me and Kev were within 20 or 30 points, but Joe was in a completely different realm. Joe killed us this summer.”
“I had over 100 points more than second place,” Wilkins said with a smile. “So I did pretty good.”
Wilkins said his best bench press session of the summer was 15 reps of 225 pounds. That would have tied or beaten 28 of the wide receivers who benched at the 2021 NFL combine.
Wilkins is stronger, faster and hungrier than ever.
“The goal for that whole offseason program is to compete,” Wilkins said. “Compete, compete, compete, compete. That’s what we did. We all busted our tails. We all went crazy. That’s why it’s fun. We all know the work we put in, and we all know it’s going to translate. We’ve worked too hard for it not to.”
The competition didn’t stop in the summer. It carried over into fall camp. Wilkins and Austin are battling for playing time at boundary receiver. Lenzy and fellow senior Lawrence Keys III — who Wilkins added to the wide receiver workout warrior list and called it “the five” — are battling for looks at field receiver.
Davis has a unique situation in that the players behind him on the depth chart are underclassmen in sophomore Xavier Watts and freshman Lorenzo Styles Jr., but he has another distinctive circumstance compared to the four other senior wide receivers; he’s the only one of them who was named a team captain.
A player doesn’t need to wear the ‘C’ to be a leader, though. Wilkins led by example in the weight room. Clearly, his position mates followed suit the best they could. Being an instigator for positive change — “transformational” progress as head coach Brian Kelly would call it — might as well be the definition of a leader in this context.
“That didn’t just happen by accident,” offensive coordinator Tommy Rees said of Wilkins winning the offseason points competition. “… He knew this was an opportunity for him.”
Just like the competition, the window of opportunity hasn't closed.
Wilkins and Lenzy somehow ended up with the same exact statistical line last season, but unfortunately for them it was not a particularly impressive one; seven catches, 63 yards, one touchdown. That's what they hope to get in one game this year, not an entire season.
With the work they put in over the last few months, they believe it's possible. Not just for them but for the entire position group. Wilkins said that doesn't have to stop with the wideouts, either.
He enjoyed taking on the tight ends in the weight room. He found joy in watching the running backs have their own success in there too. There was a purpose to it all; more points on the workout board in June and July likely led to more points on actual scoreboards in September. Time will tell.
“You don't know where to look when it's third and 10 because we can hit you from the field, we can hit you from the boundary, we can hit you from the tight end, we can hit you from a running back in the slot, we can hit you from a running back in the backfield,” Wilkins said. “You never know where we're going to hit you. We have playmakers everywhere.”
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