Football

Old dog new tricks | WVU WR Jaden Bray enjoys learning to play in the slot

Old dog, new tricks

MORGANTOWN -- Jaden Bray is the old man on West Virginia's campus. He's been a receiver on the football team for the past two years and was at Oklahoma State three years before that. Bray hadn't played every year, dealing with injuries, but he still has a lot of experience.

"I definitely feel like the older guy out there," Bray said.

Bray has taken the role as leader of the receiver room. WVU has a lot of new and young players, so he has a lot of teaching to do.

"How I lead the young guys is just trying to show by example how it’s done," Bray said. "Whenever they need questions or anything, I let them know that they can come and talk to me. But yeah, just trying to lead by example. Being first in the line, just going hard every time, and like I said, answering questions for those younger guys."

You can't teach an old dog new tricks, but maybe that doesn't apply to football. In WVU's third fall practice, Bray, who played primarily on the outside, took reps in the slot for the first time in his career. The teacher is still learning new stuff after five years in college football.

"It was fun," Bray said. "It was my first time going in there with the offense, so it was cool. I felt comfortable out there. It was cool to be in there, just to go against the safeties, not always going against corners. Definitely stuff I got to learn on. But it was real cool to go out there today."

There are some similarities between the slot and playing on the outside. Most of the routes are the same, just instead of lining up against a corner, he'll be attacking a safety.

Bray will still have to learn a couple of new routes.

"We have a couple of different route packages that we have that go for the slot," Bray said. "They have some routes. But we also have a whole bunch of looks where I am on the outside, and I’ll come in and do the same thing that the slot does. So I’ve run some of those routes before. It’s not just like completely new going in there because, like I said, we do have some of the same routes."

A slot receiver usually looks a lot different than the outside man. Slot receivers aren't usually 6-foot-2, 200 pounds like Bray. They are also much twitchier and faster, like Troy transfer D.J. Epps, who is three inches shorter. But sometimes that isn't the case.

Tight ends can motion into the slot, or Bray even gave the example of when LSU used receivers Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase, who are both over 6-foot, in the slot when the Tigers won the National Championship in 2019.

The goal is to create mismatches against safeties or linebackers, who aren't pressed up on the receiver.

"Main thing is to bring their bigger guys inside to create mismatches with the safeties,” Bray said. "As far as just giving them opener looks and stuff like that, so they’re not just always on the outside. Because usually, corners are usually there to play defense, guard receivers, and the safeties are usually coming down to tackle. Just getting different looks and just more mismatches on the field."

When healthy, Rodriguez looks at Bray as the alpha in the receiver room. Bray had 30 grabs for 382 yards in 2023 in his last season when he was fully healthy. As a true freshman, Bray started four games and played in 12. He had 13 catches for 250 yards and two scores in his debut year. The potential is there.

Rodriguez wants to figure out how he can get Bray the ball as much as possible this season. Even if that's learning a new position in the slot.

"He’s just a good football player," Rodriguez said. "Jaden would be the guy that gets more yards than anybody. He'll have 8,000 yards in practice. He’s just a hard worker and a good football player."