Notre Dame Football: How Will Fuller Stacks Up with Other Top WRs in Nation

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Will Fuller put up unprecedented numbers for a sophomore wide receiver in the lengthy history of Notre Dame football, but the national praise didn’t flowingly follow.

Offseason prognostications and awards watch lists are inexact sciences and can elicit chuckles across the football community. By no means are they the final or primary measuring stick by which we judge performance.

But Fuller, coming off a sophomore campaign in which he hauled in 76 receptions for 1,094 yards and 15 touchdowns—all records for an Irish sophomore—was absent from any of Phil Steele's four preseason All-American teams, just as the wideout was noticeably missing on the watch list for the 2014 Biletnikoff Award, given to the nation’s best wide receiver.

It’s worth mentioning that he did land an All-American honorable mention from SI.com last season.

Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

So where exactly does Fuller fit in with other top wide receivers in the country? Is he being as undervalued as some around the Notre Dame program think?

Last year, Alabama star wide receiver Amari Cooper took home the Biletnikoff Award after a ridiculous season in which he tallied 124 receptions for 1,727 yards and 16 touchdowns on a team that ran the ball 55.29 percent of the time, according to TeamRankings.

Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press

Cooper was part of a robust watch list for the award. Eighty-one different players landed on the list, including five with the last name “Davis,” a “Sharp” and a “Sharpe,” not to mention a “Cannon,” a “Pharoh” and a “Winston” (not that one).

There was, however, no mention of Fuller.

But rather than analyze a decision many months in the rear-view mirror, let’s look forward. Of those 81 players, 30 return to the college ranks in 2015.

Only one—Colorado State standout Rashard Higgins—reeled in more touchdown grabs (17) than Fuller’s 15, which are tied for the most in Notre Dame single-season history.

Only eight of those returning wideouts had more receptions than Fuller’s 76. The Philadelphia native made 19 grabs on third down last season, and 17 of those went for either a first down or touchdown.

And only seven of those 30 wide receivers posted more yards than Fuller’s 1,094. He had five catches of at least 40 yards, utilizing the big-play speed that was again on display during the Blue-Gold Game in April.

Refining our idea of the nation’s best wide receivers even further, how does Fuller compare to Steele’s preseason All-Americans based on 2014 production?

Team	Player	School	Rec.	Yards	TDs	Notes
1st	D'haquille Williams	Auburn	45	730	5	10 games
1st	Rashard Higgins	Colorado State	96	1,750	17
1st	Tyler Boyd	Pittsburgh	78	1,261	8
2nd	Josh Doctson	TCU	65	1,018	11
2nd	Laquon Treadwell	Ole Miss	48	632	5	Nine games
2nd	Corey Coleman	Baylor	64	1,119	11
3rd	Pharoh Cooper	South Carolina	69	1,1136	9
3rd	D.J. Foster	Arizona State	62	688	3
3rd	Leonte Carroo	Rutgers	55	1,086	10
4th	Nelson Spruce	Colorado	106	1,198	12
4th	Corey Davis	Western Michigan	78	1,408	15
4th	Sterling Shepard	Oklahoma	51	970	5	10 games
	Will Fuller	Notre Dame	76	1,094	15

Really, any way you slice it, Fuller is one of the top returning wide receivers in the country. Sure, there’s room for growth. Drops were a bit too common in 2014, some might argue.

“We just need to be more consistent in catching everything, running our routes the way we're coached to run them,” Fuller said of the entire Irish receiving corps after the Blue-Gold Game in April. “That's the main thing for us receivers is being more consistent in catching the ball."

Fuller will be catching passes from Malik Zaire, not Everett Golson, in what many expect to be a more run-based offense in 2015.

But with another year of seasoning, it’s still reasonable to expect Fuller to continue his growth and assert himself among the nation’s best.

All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Mike Monaco is a lead Notre Dame writer for Bleacher Report. Follow @MikeMonaco_ on Twitter.