MAC Daddy Series 2025 (WRs)
(Priest) It’s a little early for Halloween, Simmons.
Where you’re going, every day is Halloween…
- Michael Jai White, Spawn (1997)
We’re back once again with the infamous, critically acclaimed, and highly educational MAC Daddy Series for the year of 2025. I’ve spoken in the past on many occasion about this conference’s penchant for chaos (we love it). It’s a league that bridges an interesting mix of talents. One that encompasses marginal (at best) division one athletes with former four and five star recruits dropping down from the P4.
And what do you get when a future insurance salesman from Ohio who’s just happy to have his classes paid off get’s matched up against a P4/NFL level talent? Well, you saw what former South Carolina wideout Gage Larvadain did in September 2023, right? Or how about former Maryland bruiser Peny Boone with the Rockets? Former Ohio State WR Sam Wiglusz at Ohio?
Indeed, this is the conference of every P4 athlete’s nightmares—the conference of last resort for NFL hopefuls—you could call it football hell, or football heaven, depending on your perspective. It’s the conference that hauntingly whispers in the ears of P4 players late at night after they’ve lost their spot on the depth chart:
“Where you’re going, everyday is Halloween…”
But it’s a great conference for CFF. The larger the talent disparity, the better. And I get it, the past few seasons have been lean compared to what we’ve come to expect out of this great football conference.
Part of that is due to the transfer portal. There’s no doubt. But that also brings opportunities. Chaos, as has been quoted in previous MAC Daddy articles, isn’t a pit—it’s a ladder. It’s a ladder for the have-nots to ascend.
That’s where the MAC shines in my opinion. It’s a conference of great parity historically, and this has only become more true with the significant levels of roster turnover due to the portal.
With all that in mind, let’s take a look at some relevant names in the WR group this year.
Eric Weatherly (5’8, 165) — Ball State
I know I always mention this, but Ball St. is home to one of my favourite CFF WRs in the past—slot/utility man Justin Hall out of Douglasville, GA. Call it nostalgia, or the stubborn insistence of a degenerate too far gone, but ever since then I’ve always kept an eye on this program for who might be standing out at WR.
As mentioned above, many a former P4 player currently populates MAC depth charts, and Ball State’s Eric Weatherly is no exception. Originally beginning his career at Duke in 2022, the former three star prospect out of Jacksonville has spent the last two seasons in the FCS at Bucknell University.
As these things typically go, his freshman season at Duke was not very eventful, but he did manage to snag a TD on only two receptions for 16 yards. He was productive in both seasons at the FCS level, however, catching 73 passes for 835 yards and eight scores in 2024, and 42 passes for 603 yards and seven scores in 2023.
Despite being undersized, Weatherly had a solid offer sheet coming out of high school including: Kentucky, Duke, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, and several MAC offers including Ball State.
While updates out of the MAC are always sparse, one encouraging blurb can be found on Weatherly’s fantrax profile (as of July 9, at least):
“Weatherly, who made the jump up from the FCS by transferring in from Bucknell this offseason, looks to be Ball State's top receiver. He reportedly made big play after big play, and displayed a nice chemistry with presumed starting gunslinger Kiael Kelly.”
Alex Adams (6’1, 190) — Akron
Sticking with the theme of former P4s, Adams joined the MAC in 2022 after failing to capture starting duties at LSU. The Mississippi native had a spectacular debut season in the midwest, catching 63 passes for 853 yards and nine scores in 11 games (18.4 PPG in PPR formats), but then had his season cut short in 2023.
He missed all of 2024 due to the injury sustained in 2023, but by reports is back and in the thick of things for the Zips once more. We already know that he is a superior talent in this conference, as evidenced by his 2022 performance, the question will be how much of that form does he still have post-injury and after missing as much time as he did?
I don’t see him hitting the ground running, but the convenient thing about MAC players is that they don’t really hit their strides until October anyways due to scheduling. Last year’s WR1 Adrian Norton has moved on as well, so there will be plenty of opportunities for Adams (and others) to capitalize on.
Akron’s QB situation could be better (looks like Ben Finley is getting the nod again), but I think it could be worse. Finley himself is a P4 castoff beginning his career and actually starting a few games for North Carolina State and Cal before transferring to Akron in 2024.
Nik McMillan (6’1, 185) — Buffalo
I’m a big fan of UB head coach Pete Lembo and the turnaround he’s engineered—namely in making UB assets fantasy relevant again. Not only at the RB position, but the WR room has seen an uptick in value since his arrival as well.
McMillan was tabbed as “the guy” in the 2024 offseason, but unfortunately fell to injury early in the season. WR teammate Victor Snow picked up the slack and had himself a decent year (13.4 PPG), but now the big dog McMillan is back.
The QB situation at Buffalo is pointing towards Ta’Quon Roberson as the starter in 2024. Stop me if you’ve heard this before—Roberson is a former P4 player starting his career at PSU, then playing at UConn for two seasons, before spending a one year hiatus at Kansas State behind Avery Johnson.
I don’t know what to make of Roberson, as he didn’t display amazing dual threat rushing abilities nor precision passing in his starting games with UConn. However, MAC defences are more forgiving so he very well could ‘discover’ some new abilities in this conference.
Can he support two CFF relevant WRs? I have my doubts. I think McMillan, if he’s fully healthy, simply supersedes Snow as the WR1. He sustained his injury in September so it stands to reason that he may ease back into things, and probably won’t be back to full form till MACtion kicks off.
Trayvon Rudolph (5’10, 185) — Toledo
Rudolph is no stranger to this conference beginning his career at nearby NIU. As a true sophomore, he was phenomenal from mid-October to mid-November (games of 15, 36, 62, 17, and 27 points in this span).
He missed 2022 with injury, and then returned to have an OK season in 2023 with the Huskies (11 PPG). 2024 was much of the same (~10 PPG), prompting a move from Rudolph, originally announcing a transfer to SDSU, but then transitioning over to Toledo.
Toledo had two star receivers last year via Jerjuan Newton and Junior Vandeross (discussed later). Newton, however, moves on, opening the runway for Rudolph (or someone else) to replace a lot of lost production. The Rockets also return QB Tucker Gleason, who was a TD machine last year, finishing nine of his 12 games with three or more scores. Though it should be noted that a lot of these scores were also rushing TDs.
We know Rudolph can excel in this conference, but we haven’t seen him do so consistently over a long period of time. We also know he has durability issues due to his injury history.
Chase Hendricks (6’0, 200) — Ohio
Hendricks is a rare commodity in the MAC—a player who arrived at Ohio straight out of high school and has yet to transfer somewhere else going into this third year.
The Bobcats lost their head coach this offseason, but the offensive coaches of the previous regime remain, with one being promoted to head coach. So, suffice it to say that the offensive system will be largely unchanged.
That’s good news for CFFers in my mind because this program has become something of a honey pot for CFF relevant WRs. Sam Wiglusz kicked off the trend in 2022, and then Coleman Owens took the torch in 2024. Owens now moves on and I’m tabbing Hendricks as the likely heir apparent.
Hendricks already had a few notable games last season off of the arm of returning QB Parker Navarro, namely, games of 16, 10, and 11 points vs. Southern Alabama, Miami of Ohio, and Eastern Michigan. From mid-October to mid-November alone, he had games of nine, five, six and seven targets. He could be the biggest ‘breakout’ name at WR from this conference in 2025.
Junior Vandeross (5’8, 180) — Toledo
Vandeross is the most productive of returning MAC players. He was the WR1B last year with the aforementioned Jerjuan Newton as his wing man. For a lot of the same reasons that Rudolph was featured (returning QB, more targets up for grabs), Vandeross deserves to be included on this list.
It should also be noted that Toledo is perennially one of the better teams in this conference, and they return the coaching staff from a year ago. They also brought in a P4 transfer at RB who’s expected to carry a large load on offence.
I’m expecting Vandeross, who caught 85 passes on 124 targets last year, to retain his role in the slot of this system. I particularly like Vandeross in PPR formats.
Christian Leary (5’10, 180) — Western Michigan
Here we go again with a former P4 player Christian Leary. Believe it or not, once upon a time Leary was apart of what was considered one of the greatest receiver hauls in recruiting history at Alabama. The list of names of that group? Leary, JaCorey Brooks, Agiye Hall, and JoJo Earle.
Sheesh, what a dud of a group that was for Alabama. Brooks at least salvaged his career with the Louisville Cardinals, and Earle may do the same with UNLV this season, but overall, a very disappointing group.
Leary transferred fairly quickly, defecting to UCF in 2022 after one year at Alabama. He then played two seasons at Georgia Tech, catching 25 passes in 2023 (13 games played) and three passes in 2024 (four games played).
Now he finds himself at a program looking to replace their WR1 of the last two seasons, Kenneth Womack. Will Leary be the guy to emerge? Who the hell knows, but I do know that this archetype of player is one you want to keep an eye on in this conference. ◾
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