Notre Dame Receiving Corps Traveling More Miles
Entering the 2018 Citrus Bowl against LSU, Miles Boykin’s three-year collegiate career as a wide receiver was relatively modest statistically.
Redshirted as a freshman in 2015, the part-time role player caught six passes for 81 yards and a score as a sophomore, and followed with nine receptions for 151 yards and one touchdown during the 9-3 regular season in 2017.
His carpe diem moment came last December when three of Notre Dame’s top four receiving targets were ruled out of the game: Chase Claypool because of shoulder surgery, and Kevin Stepherson and tight end Alizé Mack for disciplinary reasons.
Meanwhile, the fourth — Equanimeous St. Brown — was contemplating turning pro, and by the end of the game he too was not in the lineup with the frequency of the past.
“I took it upon myself,” the 6-4, 227-pound Boykin said of recognizing an opportunity to shine while preparing for the bowl game. “They wouldn’t put me in this position if I wasn’t ready for it, so I had to act like I was ready for it — and I was ready for it.”
So much so that days before the game head coach Brian Kelly told Boykin in passing, no pun intended, that he would emerge as the MVP. The prophecy proved correct, especially during the fourth quarter when the Irish had to rally from 14-6 and 17-14 deficits.
Boykin’s sensational, diving 29-yard catch on third-and-19 of an Ian Book pass set up Notre Dame’s first touchdown to help knot the game. Next, his leaping, one-handed catch-and-run in which he shed or side-stepped several would-be tacklers for a 55-yard score with 1:28 remaining was ranked this year by BlueandGold.com as No. 11 on the top 20 all-time greatest 11th-hour pass plays in school history.
Boykin doesn’t want to say it’s been a life-altering experience, but he has achieved more of a celebrity status.
“Around campus, random people just coming up saying, ‘Thank you,’ or my professors will bring it up every now and then,” he said. “It’s always funny when someone brings it up, but that’s not something I want to be defined as.
“We go to Notre Dame. We don’t want to be known as … obviously that was a great win, I’m not taking anything away from it, but we want to do more than winning the Citrus Bowl.”
Suddenly, the senior receiver with 18 career catches has become a focal point of the passing attack with his continued ascent this spring. Physically he has always looked the part — often even projected as a future detached tight end — but now the clay has begun to take full shape following a second winter in director of football performance Matt Balis’ program.
Also a college basketball prospect when he was recruited from Providence Catholic High School near his Tinley Park, Ill., location, Boykin tested out with a broad jump of almost 11 feet and a vertical of 40 inches, squatted 450 pounds (after mainly in the upper 300s last year), and even was one of eight players to break 1.5 in the 10-yard dash while improving his explosion off the blocks.
“Miles always has been a good player, he just wasn’t strong,” offensive coordinator/tight ends coach Chip Long said earlier this spring. “He’d get thrown around all the time, and now he’s gotten strength in the upper body, lower body, he can get off press [coverage].
“He’s as good at playing the ball in the air as we have right now and really stepped up his game.”
Weight room data can be mitigated when it isn’t translated on to the field, but that has not been the case so far.
“I know those numbers are different this spring than last spring — and he’s also applying those numbers,” second-year receivers coach Del Alexander emphasized. “He’s stronger in the bench press and he’s strong at the line of scrimmage, pushing guys off, creating separation.
“With every rep he’s using his quickness, his size and length, showing his explosiveness. I think that comes from his conditioning and experience in the offense.”
To Kelly, Boykin has the makings to be a season-long MVP in the Irish aerial attack, not just the Citrus Bowl. His “separation” has gone beyond route running.
“They’re not in the same category,” Kelly said of where Boykin is compared to the rest of the wideout corps. “He’s a guy that can defeat one-on-one coverage and get you out of a loaded box by just throwing a fade to him.
“… If you’re going to leave him one-on-one to the boundary, you’re going to have to deal with going up and getting the football. We think he can take it away from anybody.”
“If you throw that ball anywhere in his radius, I know he’s going to go get it and catch it for me,” close friend and senior quarterback Brandon Wimbush said. “We’ve all seen that.”
Boykin said the LSU game was more of a one-day confidence boost, but more significant is the day-to-day approach since then in the strength and conditioning program and the consistency in his attitude toward competition. As someone who saw his older brother George III, a pilot, have his athletics career cut short because of a concussion, Boykin cherishes each opportunity he has on the playing fields.
“I don’t have much time left — I’ve got two years max, and I’m a senior now, so no telling what could happen,” said Boykin, a marketing major who had an internship with a law firm last summer. “My football career could end any day. I’m getting older now. It kind of hits you at once and just kind of brings out something different in you.
“Anytime you step on that field you have to feel like you’re the best player, otherwise you’re not going to play like it. I’ve had that mentality ever since I stepped on that field during the spring and I’m going to continue to have it. That’s not going to be taken away.”
Similar to when the football is directed toward him.
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