Something special is brewing within the receiver room at 800 North Columbia Avenue. Perhaps it would have been hard to see that coming when the 2018 Concordia University football team accumulated a grand total of 335 passing yards through its first three games. Somehow in the span of a year, one of the NAIA’s most challenged passing games has morphed into one of the nation’s best.
The 2019 passing attack is built upon a receiver core deep in playmakers who share joy in each other’s success. Of course, the position seems to require at least some degree of swag and confidence.
Says junior receiver Art Anderson, “We always say we have the best receiver core in the nation. We call ourselves the money team. We’re all going to get our money either way. We already have three receivers who have had 100-yard games. We know no matter where the ball goes big plays are going to happen. It’s fun to watch the guys you work with every day do just as well as anybody else can do.”
Anderson is exactly right. He and sophomores Cayden Beran and Korrell Koehlmoos each have enjoyed at least one game this season with a 100 or more receiving yards. The Bulldogs currently average 274.5 passing yards per game (No. 14 in the NAIA) with the potential to do more as the attack, which includes junior Lane Castaneda and sophomore Logan Kreizel (who plays tight end and splits out as a receiver in certain packages), continues to progress. There is not a single senior in that bunch.
Head coach Patrick Daberkow and his staff fashioned this group of wide outs by mining Texas for the likes of Anderson (San Antonio), Beran (Hutto) and Castaneda (San Antonio) and by seeing the potential in Koehlmoos (Pilger, Neb.), who played running back as a senior at Lutheran High Northeast. All three Texans raved about the experiences they had on their recruiting visits, which made their college decisions quite clear. So here they are, coming of age and thriving.
“We knew what we had coming back,” Koehlmoos said. “We lost Vince Beasley, who was a very good receiver. Cayden Beran stepped up a lot and we’ve worked on better route running, improving our hands and getting open more. We grinded all summer and here we are.”
There are some other factors in play that have made this group successful. There’s a growing comfort with Reggie Corbin as offensive coordinator, the pass blocking is better and Jake Kemp (another Texas native) has settled in at the quarterback position. Kemp has made immense strides. A large group of quarterbacks were brought in to compete for the starting job, but the holdover Kemp is the one who emerged as ‘the’ guy.
Kemp and his receivers really clicked at Hastings in the 44-0 blowout win. It was an especially big day for Beran, who hauled in 10 passes for 193 yards and two touchdowns.
“I’ve never had more confidence in an entire receiving core,” Kemp said. “These guys have worked extremely hard to get to where they are. I trust that when the ball leaves my hands, they will make the play and come down with that ball. Each of these guys could go for 100 yards receiving on any given Saturday. As far as improvement from last year, the strides have been tremendous. They have really stepped up to the challenge and took it upon themselves to change the program on the offensive side of the ball.”
None of the current receivers have yet reached the career achievement of a recent game breaking Bulldog receiver named Jared Garcia. Over his impressive four seasons at Concordia, Garcia broke school career records for receiving yards (2,495) and receiving touchdowns (35). But during Garcia’s run from the 2014 through 2017 campaigns, the Bulldogs never had this kind of depth at wide out.
It will be difficult for any individual to surpass Garcia’s career totals, but that’s not the focus of the current group of receivers. Certainly the yards and the touchdowns are a nice bonus, but stacking wins is the much greater reward.
“There’s a friendly competition to see who can one-up the other person, but at the same time, we know it’s all for the good of the team,” Castaneda said. “I think our styles of play complement each other. If you give any of us a chance, our quarterbacks know that we’ll be able to make a play.”
What are those qualities that complement each other? Explains Koehlmoos, “I guess you’d call Art and I the fast ones. Then you have Lane and Cayden who can go up and snag it from anyone. We realized what we had and we don’t want it to go to waste. We want to take advantage of it.”
Concordia has taken advantage of these vast skillsets by burgeoning into an offense that does a lot more than dink and dunk. The Bulldogs have 15 passing plays of 20 or more yards. In each game this season, the Bulldogs have connected on at least one touchdown pass of 26 or more yards. In last week’s victory, the only Bulldog touchdown came via a 55-yard bomb from Kemp to Koehlmoos.
All of the big plays have led to a high level of confidence. A year ago at this time, Beran wondered if it was time to give up on football. Now he’s fully recovered from the injuries that plagued him in high school and making spectacular grabs deep downfield. A group that calls itself the “money team” has to walk the walk to live up to that moniker.
“Art created the money team concept,” Beran said. “This group of guys that we have right now is insane. I believe we have the best receiving core in the GPAC. You can cover one of us, but it’s pretty tough to cover all of us. I think that’s what teams are going to start to see. It’s fun just to practice with these guys.”
The way things are going, Jarrod Pimentel’s school single-season record of 2,150 passing yards set in 2001 is in serious jeopardy. Few Concordia teams, if any, have thrown the ball around the yard like this. That’s not to say the Bulldogs will abandon star running back Ryan Durdon, but the passing game no longer has to take a back seat.
Says Beran, “I don’t think we’ve seen exactly what we can all do. The ceiling is very high for us. We’re not limiting ourselves to anything.”