New wide receivers coach Tiquan Underwood is tasked at helping the Rutgers wide receivers get back to doing serious damage out on the field catching plenty of passes and scoring touchdowns like when he was a Scarlet Knight from 2005-08.
The New Brunswick, N.J. native (Notre Dame High alum in Lawrenceville) played in 50 games at Rutgers and caught 16 touchdown passes (seventh in school history), grabbed 132 passes (ninth), and tallied 1,931 receiving yards (10th). He’s also seventh in 100-yard games highlighted by a program-record 248 against Buffalo 2007 when he finished with 1,100 yards on 65 catches and seven touchdowns. He was named to the All-Big East First Team that season.
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Since 2016, the most catches a Rutgers wideout made was Bo Melton a year ago, who made 30 for just 427 yards and two scores. In 2018, the leading receiver was actually former running back Raheem Blackshear, who had 44 catches for 367 yards and two touchdowns. Melton and Eddie Lewis had 28 and 24 receptions, for 285 and 173 yards, respectively. Not exactly eye-popping numbers.
The Scarlet Knights are going to run a new, fast, spread-style offense in 2020 with offensive coordinator Sean Gleeson calling the shots, and Underwood is going to use his past experiences to teach the receivers certain techniques to get off the line, get open, and catch passes.
Underwood, who was selected by the Jacksonville Jaguars in the seventh round of the 2009 NFL Draft, played five seasons in the NFL and three more in the Canadian Football League.
“In the NFL, I got to play for Jacksonville, who had a guy like Torry Holt. I got to play in New England and they got Tom Brady, Wes Welker, Deion Branch, (Chad) Ochocino, Julian Edelman. I went to Tampa with coach and they got Vincent Jackson and Mike Williams. The people that I played with and the coaches that I played for, I try to take bits and pieces from each person and develop my own style,” Underwood told TKR. “That's what I like about being a receivers coach. There's no right and wrong way. You just have to believe in the techniques and the philosophies that you're teaching. With my players, what I hope you're going to see is the guys playing fast and playing with confidence and just giving the relentless effort. I just want them to play as hard as they can whenever they get out on the field and for them to just enjoy it. That window of playing football as we all know, if you don't get the play forever. So whether your career ends after college or in 10 years in the NFL just enjoy every single day and just try to get better each and every day.”
Underwood has only been a coach for two years (2018 at Lafayette and 2019 as a quality control coach with the Miami Dolphins), but knows how he is as a coach and what the expectations are for his unit.
“My philosophy, I want all of my guys to be fearless,” Underwood told TKR. “I want them to play fast, and I want them to be fearless, and that starts with knowing what to do. To study the playbook you have to put in the work. And secondly, I'm huge on extra work, as all you guys know when I came to Rutgers I wasn’t a high star, high caliber player, and even playing in the National Football League, I wasn't an all-pro or pro-bowler, I had to work for everything that I got. I want to pass that down to my players. If you put in the work, it will pay off, but you have to put in the time, whether that's studying the playbook, throwing with the quarterbacks extra, doing rice bucket routines, whatever it is, you have to put in the time. Greatness doesn't happen overnight.”
In 2020, if there’s a season, Melton is back as a senior and figures to be the top wide receiver on the team. Rutgers also has sophomore Isaiah Washington, who flashed as a true freshman, grad transfer Aron Cruickshank, redshirt sophomore Paul Woods, redshirt junior Everett Wormley, redshirt junior Shameen Jones, redshirt freshman Stanley King, Monterio Hunt, and Christian Dremel. As part of the 2020 recruiting class, the Scarlet Knights are bringing in Ahmirr Robinson and Robert Longerbeam, with transfer Peyton Powell possibly ending up as a receiver as well.
“What's cool about this opportunity is that they all start with a fresh slate,” Underwood said. “So, anything they did that happened in the past, it doesn't matter. It's our job here as this new staff is to get these guys prepared and ready to play games whether it's in the fall, whether it's in the spring, whether it's all Big Ten or if it's our regular schedule. It's our job to get to them prepared and that's what we're going to do. But since I've been here, they work very hard. They've been grinding. The fact that they try to do what you're teaching them is all you can ask for as a coach.”
Fixing the offense isn’t all on Underwood or just Gleeson. The two will have plenty of smart minds on that side of the ball.
“Phenomenal,” Underwood responded about the staff head coach Greg Schiano put together. “First of all, our offensive coordinator, Sean Gleeson, is one of the smartest people I've ever been around and his resume speaks for itself. I mean at Princeton, they were tearing it up and then at Oklahoma State, he had the leader rusher in a country and the quarterback with the Big 12 Freshman of the Year. The numbers he's put up have been phenomenal. The type of person he is even better than the type of coach he is because he really cares about people. That's what's different about our Rutgers coaching is that it's genuine, it's authentic, it's great people from from top down. Offensively we got coach Gleeson, and coach Nunzio (Campanile), who was on the last staff, bringing in a guy like Augie Hoffmann from St. Joe (Montvale) and Andy Aurich, he was an offensive coordinator himself at Princeton, so I get to learn from all of these guys with so much experience this has just been great.”
Follow Chris Nalwasky on Twitter @ChrisWasky.
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