Five-way WR: How ECU's Zay Jones became the all-time receptions leader

Six years ago, as Robert Jones sat with his family at a restaurant near their home in Austin, the mealtime topic was all of the interest that college football programs were showing his son, Cayleb.

Cayleb Jones, the oldest son of Maneesha and Robert Jones, was a four-star wide receiver whose talent had earned audiences for he and his family with coaches such as Mack Brown at nearby Texas, Kevin Sumlin at Texas A&M and Gary Patterson at TCU, among others.

But Cayleb wasn’t the only aspiring college football player on these unofficial visits. There also was younger brother Isaiah, a Stephen F. Austin High sophomore who stood just 5-foot-7 but was the go-to player on every team for which he donned a jersey.

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Robert, who was East Carolina’s only consensus all-America player before embarking on an 10-year NFL career that included three Super Bowl wins with the Dallas Cowboys, asked Cayleb, “Would you go play at East Carolina?”

Robert recalls Cayleb saying, “Well, Dad, well, I don’t know … ”

Then Isaiah interjected, “I’d go play at East Carolina in a minute if they offered me.”

“Would you, Isaiah?” his father asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

Cayleb signed with Texas and, after a transfer, went on to become the 10th-leading receiver in Arizona history. Isaiah, who came to be known as Zay to East Carolina students and fans, on Saturday became the all-time receptions leader in NCAA history. This week he enters his final college game four catches away from the NCAA single-season receptions record.

“No one was interested in Isaiah,” Robert Jones said. “When I he said ‘I will go to East Carolina’, I immediately sent his film to (then-Pirates coach) Ruffin McNeil, and Ruffin liked what he saw instantly. He said Isaiah moves like a video game. I want him.

“They were the only school that really gave him a legitimate offer when he was undersized. So he was very grateful, very thankful. We remember that day like it was yesterday. He cried in the car.”

Despite the fact both of his parents and his uncle by marriage, former Pirates quarterback Jeff Blake, graduated from East Carolina, no one expected Zay Jones to go that far away for school. “I was a complete homebody,” he said.

But even as distance was a deterrent, another more powerful force was at work, a draw that has defined not just Jones’ college career, but his life: opportunity.

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Zay Jones caught 98 passes in 2015, McNeil’s final season as East Carolina’s coach, and watched former teammate (and the host of his recruiting visit) Justin Hardy set the NCAA career receptions record under the same coaching staff in 2014. If Jones had concerns about a new staff taking over for his senior season, it would have been understandable. In reality, it hardly could have worked out better for his position.

Not only were the Pirates’ new head coach and wide receivers coach former wide receivers themselves, they also couldn’t wait to work with Jones.

Head coach Scottie Montgomery had been coordinating Duke’s offense 100 miles away during Jones’ sophomore and junior seasons at ECU, and he remembers last season seeing Jones make a foot-dragging catch he called “ridiculous” and immediately going to his computer to find out Jones’ back story.

“I wanted to know why in the world we didn’t recruit him,” Montgomery said. “Now it’s to a point with social media and video and Hudl, you can be in one of the smallest Caribbean islands and have great tape and we’re going to come to you.

“It was like, How did the recruiting ratings miss on a guy in Texas with this kind of speed, with this kind of body, with all the attributes he had?”

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Montgomery hired his former Denver Broncos teammate Phil McGeoghan from the Miami Dolphins staff to coach receivers in December. McGeoghan said he watched all 98 of Jones’ junior season catches before arriving to campus. “I loved all the tools,” McGeoghan said.

When he met Jones in person, he was so impressed by his engagement and intelligence that he became convinced Jones could do something he’d never asked of any receiver he’d coached — not Jarvis Landry, not Greg Jennings, not Brian Hartline, not Mike Wallace. He wanted Jones to play five receiver positions — the X and Z on the outside, the H and Y in the slot in a one-back formation, and, in five-receiver sets, the T.

“He challenged me,” Jones said. “He said, ‘If you want to play at the next level you've got to know how to play everything.’ He knew I could handle it.”

McGeoghan has hesitated to ask this of any player he’s coached because the task of moving between any one of five positions from snap to snap requires so much understanding and thought. “And if they’re thinking, typically, they’re not playing as fast as they can be,” he said.

“Rarely would you be able to ask somebody to do that and expect them to be as productive as Isaiah has been.”

Jones reached 392 career receptions (five more than Hardy’s record set in 2014) this season by being the only FBS player to average double-digit receptions each game. His 151 catches, 1,685 receiving yards, 13.7 catches per game and 153.2 yards per game lead the nation. His margin over the player with the second-most catches is 48. His margin over the player with the second-most yards is 331. His margin over the player with the second-most yards per game is 30.1.

Eighty-five of his catches have resulted in first downs and 36 have gone for 15 or more yards, both best in the FBS.

Jones’ numbers could be perceived as partly a function of opportunity; ECU’s expected No. 2 and 3 receivers Trevon Brown and Davon Grayson are missing this season for academic and injury reasons, respectively. But as the season progressed and the Pirates struggled to keep up with opponents, the coaching staff decided it was best to look to the 6-foot-1 Jones as much as possible — one because he would catch it, and two, because his five-position versatility created a problem for opposing defenses.

“It’s a huge advantage,” Montgomery said. “It's very hard for a defense to make a call to stop someone if he's in five different locations, especially in one series.”

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One of Jones and McGeoghan’s first face-to-face meetings entailed a review of Jones’ goals for the 2016 season. He listed being a good teammate and a number of statistical marks, nearly all of which he has met.

He did not list the Biletnikoff Award given annually to college football’s best pass-catcher, nor the Campbell Trophy, widely regarded as college football’s academic Heisman. Jones has been named a finalist for each this month.

In a way, the two nominations epitomize the versatility Jones possesses beyond where he stands on the line of scrimmage. He’s always been a multi-tasker (his parents remember him doing pushups while watching television at a very young age) and his grade-point average and campus approval rating are as remarkable as his receiving stats. It’s almost like he feels he owes that to his school.

“I knew I was special, I just didn't know where I was going to fit in at first,” he said. “My confidence was really shot with not getting the offers that I imagined that I would have.

“I'm truly grateful for the opportunity that ECU gave me, because no one else really did.”

Montgomery and McGeoghan, unprompted, each said they could envision a day when Jones goes from working with an oval-shaped ball to an oval-shaped office.

“He's just one of those guys, he didn't have to play football to be successful,” Montgomery said. “He could be the President of the United States of America. I haven't been around one like him, and I've been around some great humans that play football, but I just haven't been around as complete a person as Isaiah Jones.”