Don't Sleep on This Vandy Sophomore
I used to caddy for lawyers and their wives on summer weekends. I looked at those long tan legs and just knew I had to be a lawyer. The wives had long tan legs, too.
- Avery, The Firm (1993)
Vanderbilt—it’s the program you think of when you first hear the name “SEC”, a southeastern football juggernaught, right? Well, this latest staff have actually done a really good job in evaluating hidden gems at the WR position when it comes to recruiting high school prospects. Unfortunately, in the free-transfer era of CFB, holding onto these players when they hit has become increasingly hard, even for an SEC program like Vandy.
We can look at names like Will Sheppard, London Humphreys, and Jayden McGowan as some examples of this. Speaking of Humphreys, we will be talking about him some more in a bit.
Of course, the transfer portal works both ways, and Vandy has benefited on that front as well (e.g., Ray Davis’ transfer from Temple, of course, he eventually left as well). Diego Pavia from New Mexico State also made his way over to the Commodores this year too.
Most troubling for Vandy is that they experienced something of a mass exodus this offseason, with the aforementioned WRs Sheppard, Humphreys and McGowan moving on to Colorado, UGA, and Boston College, respectively. That’s a double edged sword from a CFF perspective though. Sure, the offence overall may not be as good as before, but there are now a lot of vacated targets for the next leading man to take on.
That brings me to today’s player— true sophomore Junior Sherrill. Like so many Commodores before him, Sherrill is a local product, hailing from Lipscomb Academy, which is a well-known football program in the state of Tennessee. In fact, current UAB head coach and former super-bowl winner Trent Dilfer was the coach there until recently. The list of alumni from Lipscomb Academy that eventually went on to secure Div I. scholarships is lengthy.
Those of you who read the Monthly Round Up article in March might recognize this quote from a Vandy beat writer:
London Humphreys rightfully drew lots of praise for his play as a true freshman last year, but [Junior] Sherrill had a strong debut season in his own right. One could argue that Sherrill is the best wide receiver on the team for next season. Sherrill played running back early in high school, and Beck may be able to move him around in creative ways.
That’s certainly very exciting. The OGs of this publication should already know how I feel about talk of WRs getting used in the running game—but first, let’s take a deeper look at the staff.
Coaching & System
WR1 PPG AVERAGE — HC: 11.3 — OC: 7.51 (half ppr)
Clark Lea is the brave soul who currently calls himself the head coach of the Vanderbilt Commodores. His OC is a man named Tim Beck—not to be confused with the Tim Beck over at Coastal Carolina, who I recently wrote about. Lea has been with Vandy since 2021, while Beck joined this offseason from New Mexico State.
Prior to Vandy, Lea was the DC and LBs coach at Notre Dame (2017-2020). His coaching background is entirely comprised of defensive side experience, so there is not much value in looking at the offensive patterns of his previous stops.
Beck on the other hand spent the last two seasons as the OC of NMS. Before that he was an offensive analyst at TCU (2021), and the head coach of Pittsburgh State (2010-2019).
During his time with the Gorillas of Pitt State, he had five 1000-yard receivers between 2011 and 2019 (they don’t have their 2010 stats tracked anymore). Five 1000-yarders in nine seasons is pretty good in my opinion.
Vandy hasn’t had any 1000-yard receivers since Lea’s been there, but we can see in the table below that the WR1 gets a lot of targets regardless. This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that Vandy is a bottom feeder in their conference, and usually plays from behind, but fails to move the ball against many of their opponents. Thus, the perfect recipe for a lot of targets, but not a lot of corresponding production is formed.
That doesn’t mean that their players aren't valuable though, especially in September. I’ve referred to Will Sheppard as “Mr. September” in the past, now with him moving on Sherrill could be that next guy. We can even see that in 2022, Will Sheppard commanded a titanic 34.6% target share, which coincided with 10 targets per game. Mind you that was on a team that actually ran the ball 56% of the time. Lea’s three year average at Vandy is a much more balanced, at 51.5/48.5 in favour of the run. In fact, they passed it more last year than ran, at 52/48 in favour of the air.
Beck is much more ground-game oriented, with his NMS average coming in at 58.5/41.5 in favour of the run. Something will have to give there, and I suspect it’ll be Beck, given that Vandy is going to be playing from behind a lot once again in 2024.
Vanderbilt ranked 83rd in the FBS with 26.9 seconds per play, which is on the slower side, but not the worst.
Junior Sherrill (5’11, 175)
2023 STATS: 20-293-3 (5.9 ppg)2
Sherrill was a class of 2023 standout, being rated a composite and internal three star according to 247 Sports. His first year on campus was a good one for a true freshman, even if he was overshadowed by fellow 2023’er London Humphreys.
If you missed May’s monthly round-up article, there was an update in there from a beat writer on Vandy’s expected starting offence this season:
From a Vanderbilt beat writer, the starting QB is expected to be Diego Pavia, RB1 is expected to be Sedrick Alexander, and the three starting wideouts: Junior Sherill in the slot, Quincy Skinner and Loic Fouonji out wide.
I have my concerns about Pavia’s throwing ability in the SEC, but there should be a lot of targets coming either way.
Here is a quote from another update after Micah Bell transferred into the program later this offseason:
Along those lines, Bell figures to primarily play slot receiver behind sophomore Junior Sherrill while competing with true freshman Tristen Brown.
So it certainly sounds like our guy Sherrill has the slot role locked up. We saw above that the WR1 under Lea can yield huge target share, and Sherrill feels like as good a candidate as any to secure that role.
Closing
Overall concerns here are the same as usual with Vanderbilt players: production could be limited after the first month. I’m also not sure whether Pavia will be able to complete forward passes in the SEC. We know he’s a fun QB—primarily because of the rushing premium he brings—but this is a different ball game now. So, that’ll be a critical knife’s edge in determining how valuable a player like Sherrill is in 2024.
Sherrill currently has no ADP data according to Campus2Canton in CFF formats. I can understand that, as even in a 30-round bestball it might be hard to bite on a player like this. I am intrigued and may find my way into a share for 2024, or at the very least keep him as a watchlist guy for week one.
They play Virginia Tech to open the year, then Alcorn State and Georgia State. They then embark on a three game stretch of Alabama, Missouri and Kentucky before playing Ball State on Oct. 19th. If there is a time to roster Sherrill, it’ll probably be those week two and three matchups, and then potentially the game vs. Ball State as well. After that they play Texas, LSU, Auburn, South Carolina, and Tennessee. He could sneak in some good games in the SEC schedule too, but you’ll have a hard time choosing him in your starting lineup. He’s a much better bestball option for that reason. ◾
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Sample from 2018-2023.
Half PPR
Another banger! Great article