Jalen Knox has been having flashbacks to his days at Timberview high school in Texas. There, the Missouri receiver played just about everywhere except in the trenches. He lined up at quarterback, running back, slot receiver and wideout on offense, slot corner and safety on defense, punt and kickoff returner on special teams.
Entering his junior season, Knox isn’t going back to playing both sides of the ball, but new head coach Eliah Drinkwitz and his staff are making an effort to line him up in the slot rather than always out wide — and perhaps occasionally elsewhere, too.
“We've got to do a better job offensively of getting him the ball in space,” Drinkwitz said of Knox. “We're gonna have to be creative in finding ways for him to touch it, and he’s going to have to be somebody that touches the ball with Larry (Rountree) and Tyler (Badie) and some other guys.”
Knox believes a more versatile role fits his skillset better than being pigeonholed as an outside receiver, where he spent the vast majority of his time in Derek Dooley’s offense during his first two seasons on campus. It’s partly because of that new role that his coaches and teammates believe he is poised to break out and finally deliver on the promise he flashed as a true freshman.
“He’s a receiver that can play inside, outside,” fellow junior Dominic Gicinto said. “Wherever you put him, he can make plays. He’s just really dynamic. He’s got speed, he can get in and out of cuts, he can catch the ball. He’s going to be everywhere this year.”
“Jalen Knox is going to blow back up,” added Maurice Massey. “For sure.”
It didn’t take long after arriving on campus for Knox to make an impression on the field. With the Tigers short on wide receivers, Knox worked his way into the starting lineup as a true freshman. During the third week of the 2018 season, a shootout win at Purdue, he caught five passes for 110 yards and his first touchdown. The performance earned him SEC Freshman of the Week honors. Knox caught another touchdown two weeks later, at Alabama. The following week, he took home freshman of the week honors again after logging 104 yards and another score against Memphis.
Knox faltered down the stretch, missing three games due to a concussion and catching just three passes for 23 yards in his final three games combined. Still, the first half of his freshman season excited both the coaching staff and fanbase. A year ago, he became the buzz of fall camp, staff and players alike predicting a breakout sophomore season.
Whether due to shoddy quarterback play from graduate transfer Kelly Bryant, an offensive line that didn’t give Bryant a lot of time to look downfield or his own inconsistencies, it didn’t happen. Knox saw his statistical totals drop from 27 receptions and 419 yards to 19 grabs for 307 yards. His only 100-yard performance of the season came against Southeast Missouri, and his only score of the year against Troy. His performance tailed off at the end of the year again, too, as he caught just seven passes for 96 yards in the last six games combined.
Knox admitted that he let the hype of his strong debut get to his head a bit. This season, it’s graduate transfers Keke Chism and Damon Hazelton who have generated more buzz, which is fine with Knox. He said seeing their work ethics during camp, particularly Chism’s, has helped him find ways to improve his own game. He also believes his junior year will be different because of how he’s being used in the offense.
“I feel like last year I was kind of living off the hype of a freshman, like having a good season as a freshman,” he explained. “This year I just feel like I’m ready to get put in the right place, just doing stuff that I’m comfortable doing, and really feel like this really feels like a good year for me.”
Even though Dooley’s offensive system was actually billed as more complex for the route-runners than that of his predecessor, Josh Heupel, Knox almost always found himself lined up out wide, and much more often on the right side of the formation than the left. According to Pro Football Focus, nearly half of his targets (15 of 31) last season came more than 10 yards down the field.
That represented a stark change for a player used to getting the ball in space on screen passes, handoffs and quick slants in high school. Drinkwitz has talked about trying to line up not just Knox but every Missouri receiver at different spots in the formation throughout games this season. Knox believes doing so will make it more difficult for the defense to game-plan against one or two pass-catchers.
“It makes it harder for a defense to lock in on one person and decide, alright, we want to do this to stop this person,” he said. “With everybody moving around, you have to try to do different things or different looks, you can’t just get comfortable into one defense.”
Knox also feels more at home when he’s able to do more than simply run deep. He fell in love with the sport of football while playing all over the field. A more versatile role suits not only his skillset, but his mindset.
“I feel like I’ve just been in too many positions in football just to be locked down at one position,” he said. “I just like to see different things where I can move and different positions do different things. It keeps my mind going, helps me to be able to stay focused on the game.”
Like they have about most aspects of the team’s new offense, Drinkwitz and his players haven’t revealed every detail about how Knox could feature into the game plan this season, although at one point during the summer, Drinkwitz joked about putting Knox behind center in the Wildcat formation. That’s unlikely to come to fruition, at least on a regular basis. But don’t be surprised if Knox’s usage extends beyond simply rotating between slot receiver and wideout, left side of the formation and right.
“Just about any way you can imagine,” Knox said, “I’ll probably get it.”
