Second stop in the deep-dive series is wide receiver, a room I ranked near the bottom of the pack in our opener. That’s not a knock on the guy at the top - it’s everything behind him that still needs to sort itself out before the opener.
The Projected Depth Chart
Junior Sherrill is the unquestioned WR1, and it isn’t close. Behind him, Ja’Cory Thomas is the favorite for the No. 2 job after transferring in from Old Dominion, with Cole Adams working in as an experienced, versatile third option the staff has leaned on in camp even without huge target volume. Brycen Coleman, Joseph McVay and Tristen Brown make up the rotational tier fighting for whatever’s left, with a handful of other camp bodies still in the mix for a role. This is a room with one proven SEC star, one impressive but unproven-at-this-level No. 2, and a lot of unproven depth trying to separate.
The Camp Battle
Sherrill has been, by every account out of camp, the most impressive receiver on the field… no surprise for a guy coming off 54 catches, 784 yards and seven touchdowns a year ago. The real story is behind him. Thomas has the frame and has enough tape and traits to still be considered the favorite at No. 2, but the question the staff is working through in camp is whether his production translates… Old Dominion plays in the Sun Belt, a step down in competition level from what he’s about to see every week in the SEC. Early camp reps are the first real test of that jump. Adams, meanwhile, has carved out a role as a steady, experienced piece, coming from Alabama, even without piling up targets in camp reps… the kind of player a staff trusts more than the box score suggests.
Breakout Pick: Ja’Cory Thomas
If he makes the jump, Thomas is the swing factor for this whole passing game. He was a downfield weapon at Old Dominion, going for 719 yards and five touchdowns last season, and Vanderbilt brought him in specifically to replace the vertical juice it lost when Tre Richardson left for the portal. Pro Football Focus rated him the fifth-best returning receiver in the entire SEC… betting that the traits carry over even though the tape came against Sun Belt competition. A Thomas who translates gives whoever wins the quarterback job a legitimate second read who can win downfield - which this offense hasn’t reliably had since Richardson walked out the door.
The Worry
It’s the same worry it’s been all camp: does Thomas’s game translate against SEC corners the way it did against Sun Belt competition? Going from Old Dominion to a conference full of NFL caliber defensive backs is one of the bigger jumps a portal receiver can make, and route-running or separation that showed up on tape a year ago doesn’t automatically carry over. Adams is steady but hasn’t been a high-volume weapon in camp. Coleman has been a fall-camp fixture for multiple years now without ever fully cashing in the role. If Thomas needs time to adjust to the level, Vanderbilt’s passing game could be back to leaning almost entirely on Sherrill the way it did for stretches of 2024… and every SEC defense knows how to game-plan around a one-man room.
Bold Prediction
Thomas’s play translates well and finishes as Vanderbilt’s clear No. 2 receiver by October, giving this offense the two-man punch it’s missing on paper right now. Sherrill gets more attention than ever with a new quarterback under center, and it’s Thomas who ends up making him better by forcing safeties to pick their poison. Somebody from the Coleman/McVay/Brown tier also earns a real role by midseason… not because any one of them separates in August, but because a nine-game SEC schedule always finds a way to create an opening.
If you’ve got a number in mind for Thomas’s targets once he’s fully healthy, or you like Sherrill to put up a career year regardless of who’s throwing him the ball, our partner Underdog is the place to put that opinion to work:
https://play.underdogsports.com/vgwg/p-ttvandy
As always, Commodore Nation. Anchor Down.