UM receiver Horton knows Miami’s ‘gonna need everybody.’ He’s ready to be part of the mix
When the Miami Hurricanes wrapped up spring practice in mid-April, Isaiah Horton found himself in a good place. The redshirt sophomore had a solid showing and looked poised to take over as a starting receiver alongside Jacolby George and Xavier Restrepo.
And then the Hurricanes landed Sam Brown in the transfer portal, adding another talented veteran to the mix in Miami’s receiver room and pushing Horton down the depth chart.
However, that’s not fazing Horton, who instead is embracing the challenge of the internal competition as he tries to finally translate his potential into results on the field.
“That’s my brother,” Horton said of Brown. “We’re battling on the field together. I look at it like that. We’re going in this together. We’re gonna need everybody, not just one person.”
Horton does want to at least be one of those people. He feels like he made strides during the spring. He also knows he needs to build on those positive steps if he wants to make an impact.
“I don’t want to get complacent,” Horton said. “I don’t want to [think that] since I had a good spring [I can] get relaxed. I want to keep going. I want to be better. I want to be great. I have my teammates inside the receiver room ... motivating me to be the best I can be because they see the potential inside of me.”
That potential hasn’t fully shown on the field just yet.
Horton last season caught 13 passes for 168 yards and one touchdown. Just about all of that production came in three games — a 52-yard touchdown catch in Miami’s 48-33 win over Texas A&M, four catches for 52 yards in UM’s 41-31 loss at North Carolina and five catches for 54 yards in the Hurricanes’ 31-24 loss to Rutgers in the Pinstripe Bowl.
Horton noted that he wasn’t consistent enough both on the field and in his preparation and that was a key factor in his inability to produce steady results.
“I’d make plays here and there,” Horton said. “As a freshman, I would make a play and then come back and just do something that just has nothing to do with the play. That’s what I had to work at. That’s where I knew I had to grow at — and I have. That’s why it’s much easier for me now. The game has slowed down. I can see coverages now. I understand where I need to be at on routes and stuff like that.”
Hurricanes offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson spoke highly of Horton, saying the 6-4, 205-pound receiver is willing to do “the gritty things at receiver that don’t show up on the stat line.”
“When I ask you to block a safety, a linebacker, how do you react?” Dawson said. “Because it’s about the whole offense being successful. He embodies all that, is willing to do whatever it takes. Those guys should get rewarded with some balls down the field and some good things happening.”
That said, there are a lot of receivers competing for touches. In addition to the quartet of Restrepo, George, Brown and Horton, Miami also has true freshmen Joshisa Trader and Ny Carr along with sophomore Ray Ray Joseph who are competing to be part of the rotation.
“If we trust you and you’re making plays and you’re doing the right thing, you’ll rotate,” Dawson said. “But that falls on you, too, as a player. You’ve got to show consistency in practice and know what you’re doing. So, yeah, I think we’ll have more rotations this year based on having more players that we trust and that are doing things the right way. So, hopefully, we’ll be rotating a lot of players, that way everybody is healthy. That’s what I want.”
That’s what Horton and the receivers want, too. They know there’s power in numbers and are looking to raise each other up.
“We understand how it’s going to go,” Horton said, “and we just want everybody to be good and we’re not trying to be selfish about it.”
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