Dacoven Bailey headed for playing time as a true freshman

As training camp draws closer to a close at Rutgers, there is one freshman who is inching closer to his first bout of playing time at the college level. While most Rutgers freshmen in the class of 2016 will wind up redshirting, one wide receiver is likely to make his college debut against Washington on Sept 3rd.

“One guy that I have really been impressed with is Dacoven Bailey,” RU head coach Chris Ash said on Friday. “Dacoven will probably be a freshman that will play both on offense and on special teams. He’s done a really nice job. He’s fast, he’s got good speed; one of the faster kids we’ve got on the football team. So I am really excited about him and what he’s done in the increased reps through training camp.”

Ash and company picked up a commitment from Bailey right before signing day as the Pilot Point, Texas native was an underrated and under-recruited prospect.

“Underrated I guess is based on who rated him,” Ash said.” There are a lot of people who are under recruited. He was recruited, but he was fast. Bill Busch, our DB coach, had a connection there and someone put us onto him. We watched the film and said he looks pretty good. He looked good to us. We went down and we got him and what we saw on the film is what we are seeing on the practice field. We are very excited to have him.”

As Bailey’s primary recruiter, Busch went on to talk about what he saw in the now 5-foot-10, 200-pound athlete.

“His ability to compete. He is someone who I thought was a freak football player, a freak basketball player at point guard, a state qualifier in Texas, which is hard to do, so he is a great track [athlete]. I don’t remember which way it was but he ran track in the morning and played baseball in the afternoon. So he was a four-sport star for four years. That’s pretty impressive right there.”

Busch also mentioned what he’s seen out of Bailey through the first two weeks of training camp.

“How competitive he is and how hard he goes, that’s what stands out.”

It was Busch’s ties to Texas that enabled Rutgers to identify Bailey and although many other schools had passed him over, the Rutgers coaching staff saw a gem down in the Lone Star state.

“We wanted him at corner, bad,” Busch said of Bailey. “And then he ended up at receiver, that’s kind of where he wanted to be. He’s an offensive guy too, he could play corner also.”