OXFORD, miss. – As we prepare for the first week at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium to kick off the 2024 Ole Miss football season, The Rebel Gang The team introduces a player every day. We explain who they are, how they got here and what we expect from them.
Today we take a look at the No. 10 player on our list, WR Jordan Watkins.
Pass catchers have always been a theme on this list and that trend continues today with the addition of Jordan Wakins to our list. The fifth-year senior looks to have another successful year with Jaxson Dart while battling for targets in an Ole Miss wide receiver room that returns some core players and brought in five transfers.
How did Jordan Watkins come to Ole Miss?
Watkins grew up in Russell County, Kentucky. During Jordan’s middle school years, the Watkins family moved to Louisville. To begin his high school prep career, Watkins attended DeSales High School, where he excelled on the football field. As a sophomore, he was actually the school’s best runner, averaging 8.2 yards per carry, 742 yards, and 12 touchdowns that year.
Watkins then transferred to Butler High School, where he became more versatile as a pass catcher and runner. In his final season, Watkins recorded 37 catches for 712 yards and 7 touchdowns, while also adding 212 rushing yards and 3 touchdowns on the ground.
Watkins was also a star in athletics There, as a sophomore in 2018, he set the school record in the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.97. His recruitment was slow, despite being one of Kentucky’s best players in the 2020 class. After originally choosing the University of Kentucky, Watkins transferred to Scott Satterfield and Louisville.
As a freshman, Watkins appeared in 8 games, catching 8 balls for 57 yards and scoring a 23-yard run, which was his only touchdown of his freshman year. When Tutu Atwell moved to the NFL, Watkins experienced an immediate boost in his second season. A field ranger and big playmaker, he recorded 35 catches for 530 yards and 4 TDs as a sophomore – including 4 catches and 35 receiving yards against the Rebels at the start of the 2021 season.
After entering the transfer portal in late November, Watkins received an offer from Ole Miss in December and visited the city shortly thereafter. On December 21, Watkins committed to Ole Miss.
Career prospects
Watkins has had a strong connection with QB Jaxson Dart since both arrived at Ole Miss ahead of the 2022 season. The two are close and have been seen hosting basketball games and visits together. The two also have a connection on the field. In his two seasons at Ole Miss, Watkins has recorded 93 catches for 1,190 receiving yards and 5 TDs.
Watkins enters his third season and is now the most productive returning receiver in the Ole Miss room (measured by production at Ole Miss).
In his freshman season at Ole Miss, Watkins posted seven catches for 117 yards in an SEC road win over Vanderbilt.
Jaxson Dart 🎯 to Jordan Watkins for a 61-yard touchdown!
— DraftKings Sportsbook (@DKSportsbook) October 8, 2022
He finished the season strong with 4 catches for 45 yards and a touchdown against Texas Tech in the bowl game.
In his senior year of 2023, Watkins had several high-volume games. He topped the 100-yard mark three times and had 9 receptions against Alabama in his career.
On the way to 2024
As we’ve mentioned with many other position groups, Ole Miss has brought in a lot of new names in the wide receiver room. Despite these changes, Watkins remains a familiar name. Given his chemistry with Dart and his productive time in the Ole Miss offense, Watkins will play a major role for this group.
Ole Miss lists Watkins as 6’1″ and 200 pounds. While Ole Miss considers Watkins a smooth route runner, his speed is unmatched on this roster. Watkins ran the 40 yards in 4.38 seconds, not to mention the 100 meters in 10.97 seconds. That’s really the kind of speed you really need.
We’re Jordan Watkins, just days away from the return of Rebel football…@jordantwatkins
pic.twitter.com/wSTXKpdhPl— Barstool Ole Miss (@BarstoolOleMiss) 20 August 2024
Watkins will be valuable because he can threaten the defense with explosive plays. In 2021, his longest catch was 76 yards. In 2022 it was 61 yards and in 2023 it was 68 yards. He averages 13.6 yards per catch.
There will be a lot of mouths to feed, but the threat of Watkins on the field with many of these other players can create a lot of positive plays for the Ole Miss offense. With Watkins’ ability to stretch the field while having to pull a safety, he will create a lot of space for others as well. Another area we could see Watkins in is crossing routes across the field where he can try to escape corners horizontally in man coverage.
With all of these players and the limited amount of passes each player gets, it would be unreasonable to try to predict how much volume a player might get, but Watkins’ experience, past performance and attributes show he is a great value to this Ole Miss team.
Camp Notes
Ole Miss has exercised a certain level of caution with Jordan. For example, today he was seen working out on the exercise bike. He has also been seen at drills on occasion throughout camp, but not in many of the contact situations we have observed since the first week of camp. However, remember that the media has a limited amount of airtime, so we can only talk about the time we have to follow. Regardless, we all know what Jordan can do – and we expect him to get back on track once he’s back on the court this season. Hot Toddy!
TJ Oxley
TJ Oxley is the Vice President of Operations and Director of Community Relations at The Rebel Walk. He is also the Director of Basketball Content and Senior Basketball Writer. He has over five years of experience producing in-depth analysis of college basketball across multiple platforms. An Ole Miss MBA alum, TJ started at The Rebel Walk in 2019.
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