MORGANTOWN — Looking for a depth chart for West Virginia University’s wide receiver corps? New receivers coach Ryan Garrett said not to expect one just yet.

“We don’t have any starters,” Garrett said, “and we’re not playing a game next week.”

Garrett is in his first spring with the Mountaineers – and so are many of the players he’s coaching. And those who have returned from last season will need to take on much larger roles than they have in the past.

Garrett is unfazed. After all, he said, the spring season is for finding out which players will ultimately rise to the top in the fall.

Of the 12 receivers currently on WVU’s roster, only four of them caught a pass last season. Those four – Rodney Gallagher, Preston Fox, Jayden Bray and Jarel Williams – snagged a total of 41 passes in 2024 out of the 266 caught. The transfer portal really hurt WVU’s receiver depth, as the Mountaineers’ leading and third-leading receivers from last season – Hudson Clement and Traylon Ray, respectively – are on other programs’ rosters for 2025. Clement transferred to Illinois, while Ray transferred to Ole Miss.

That means Garrett and the rest of the offensive staff will look toward little used players from last season, as well as those who transferred in this spring, to pick up the slack.

Whether a receiver is in his first year or his fifth in Morgantown, Garrett said they all need to fit a profile.

“We’re asking them to strain every play,” Garrett said. “You won’t see our receivers standing around and watching while you see us play. You’re going to see guys constantly moving and constantly working.

“So we’re challenging those guys,” he continued. “We tell them they’ve got to be in the best shape of anybody in the country – definitely anybody on the field.”

What helps in the transition, Garrett said, is that a couple of receivers now at West Virginia transferred from Jacksonville State, which was where both Garrett and head coach Rich Rodriugez came from last season. Cam Vaughn led the Gamecocks with 43 catches for 803 yards and five touchdowns, while Martinsburg native Jarrod Bowie caught 13 passes for 207 yards.

Garrett specifically mentioned Vaughn’s productivity and experience as integral to WVU’s new receiving corps. He also said that the redshirt sophomore has just scratched the surface of what he can do.

“We recruited Cam to Jax State as a quarterback originally,” he said. “I had this thought in the back of my mind that, man, he could be a pretty good wideout. Then he ended up making that move and he had never played wideout before.

“I believe he still has a ton of development ahead of him,” Garrett continued. “I think his ceiling is super, super high.”

Garrett said he’ll try to get all of his receivers to bump their heads against their personal ceilings, and perhaps get them to break through to even higher levels. With most of the receiver production from last year gone, they’ll all have the opportunity to step into bigger roles.

“Those guys need to challenge themselves,” Garrett said. “They’re going to get as far as they’ll take themselves and we’re going to push them to places they’ve never been, that they couldn’t get on their own. But ultimately, they have to decide how far they want to go.”