How Washington's John Ross evolved from simply fast to explosive receiver
SEATTLE — For so long, Washington’s John Ross III had thought his identity as a football player was pretty simple and very singular: He was the fast guy.
It was cool, sure, but it actually made it tough sometimes for Ross to understand what it would take for him to become the complete receiver he is today.
“It’s difficult for someone that's fast — for someone to sit there and tell you to slow down and just tell you not to use your speed all the time … like, that’s how you got here,” Ross told Paste BN Sports. “Once you understand the game more, you'll understand when it just comes natural not to rush. Sometimes, you'll overrun the defense and that's sometimes not good because you're not on the same page as the quarterback.”
So Ross learned how to change speeds, and how to slow himself down a bit. And when to go fast. Or when to go sideways.
You can see that kind of footwork on Ross’s spectacular 67-yard touchdown last Saturday against Cal, part of a 208-yard, three-touchdown day: Ross catches the long pass from quarterback Jake Browning at the 20-yard line, then nearly comes to a standstill, ducks to dodge a defender, finds a blocker, cuts left and basically runs past and also through the entire Bears secondary.
“He’s definitely a guy a lot of people pull for,” Washington first-year receivers coach Bush Hamdan said. “I think that's first and foremost. He's a guy who's been through a lot. If you look at his past, he was a defensive back at one point. He's had two knee injuries. I started with him in the spring, and John was just taking it one day at a time. There was so much anticipation, I guess you'd say, for him to be healthy again, and so much attention around, ‘How's he going to be when he comes back?’ ”
Ross missed the entire 2015 season, needing a pair of surgeries to repair, at different times, a torn anterior-cruciate ligament in his left knee and a meniscus tear in his right knee. The injury-plagued year was particularly frustrating, coming on the heels of a sophomore season in which he spent significant time as a slot receiver, cornerback and as a kickoff returner — accounting for seven touchdowns, and averaging 75 yards per scoring play.
While Ross rehabbed his knees, he watched film of himself from that sophomore year, “just to correct everything that was wrong,” Ross said. “I think watching yourself helps a lot.”
“I was just watching all the clips, even the ones I didn't catch the ball on,” he continued. “Why I wasn't playing so much — I saw all of it. I couldn't understand back then, but once you actually watch, the film never lies. I watched of it, and I could tell right away why I wasn't playing and why I got hurt. …
“Me getting on and off the ball, that was difficult for me my sophomore year. Because teams would just play off the ball. The only thing I had was speed.”
As Ross studied himself, he began to play catch. As soon as he was cleared by the team’s medical staff to do some football-related activities last winter, he and Browning began throwing weekly. And over holiday breaks. By the time mandatory workouts began and eventually spring football, they’d become quite compatible. He’d also started relying on his cornerback experience to help him on offense; he could identify coverages easier, and he remembered what coaches had told him about receivers similar to himself — be patient with fast guys, and don’t over commit.
So he knew how defenses would approach him, a 5-11, 173-pound receiver in the midst of a breakout season. He’s even been added to the Biletnikoff Award watch list.
Against Cal, Ross put up a career-best 208 yards on six receptions — an unsurprising number for such an explosive player. All three of his touchdown catches came by halftime.
Entering the game, Ross had thought the Washington receiving corps might have an opportunity for a big game. He figured, like other opposing defenses had, that Cal might try to stop the run and test the outside receivers.
“Schematically (vs. Cal), we did feel he had to go out and have a good game,” Hamdan said. “He had to be explosive, and we felt there were going to be some situations throughout that game, like a lot of games — but especially in that game where there's going to be opportunities where he was going to be isolated a little bit — to go out and make those plays. …
“With a guy like that, who can take the top off a defense, he’s also got to prove then when defenses are soft, that he’s able to consistently take the underneath stuff and be able to take what the defensive will give you. In certain situations when the defense does play him extremely soft and wants to protect from that long pass, he's been able to become more of a natural route-runner and run some of that underneath stuff.”
Which makes Washington’s already potent offense even more dangerous — and versatile. Which is why it was and is so important to get Ross involved early. It worked against Cal, and it could work again this Saturday in the fourth-ranked Huskies’ biggest test yet: No. 20 USC.
“It’s something we always think about, especially in the first 15-20 plays,” Hamdan said. “We’re really aware of getting those guys — who we feel can change the dynamic of the game — the ball early on.”
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