Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1315054
do," Hamler urged him. "That's what you were born to do. That's why you came to Penn State, just ball." With Hamler off to the NFL, Dotson has been doing exactly that. In addition to all the encourage- ment, he's also been on the receiving end of a lot of passes. Through five games, he was Penn State's top wideout with 31 catches for 527 yards and six touch- downs. He was fourth in the Big Ten with an average of 105.4 receiving yards per game. As the most experienced player at a po- sition group dominated by freshmen, Dotson knew going into the season that he was going to be looked upon as a leader, on the field and off. The coaching staff expected it from him, but James Franklin and first-year receivers coach Taylor Stubblefield also understood that fiery displays of emotion were not in Dot- son's nature. "He's not somebody who is going to be that rah-rah guy," Stubblefield said. "Which is fine, we don't need him to be that rah-rah guy. But he has seen the power of his voice and the power of his actions, what it does to younger guys and even what it does to his peers. And so I think he's trying to embrace that daily, and he is getting challenged on that daily, whether it's from myself or Coach Franklin or the rest of the staff. And that's another thing that's great about this pro- gram, honestly. Our program helps de- velop leadership, and he is seeing the growth in himself and is becoming a leader." Dotson, who in November was added to the Biletnikoff Award watch list, has the lead-by-example part down pat. He worked diligently on his technique during the off-season, borrowing a JUGS ma- chine while stuck back home in Nazareth during the quarantine and improvising when necessary. He would catch tennis balls and other small objects as a way to enhance his dexterity and hand-eye co- ordination. "If you can catch a little ob- ject," he said, "a football is way easier." Dotson did break one of his coach's car- dinal rules with his back-to-back circus catches against the Buckeyes. Stubble- field has made it clear to all of his re- ceivers that he doesn't want to see them lunging to make one-handed catches, at least in practice. The rationale is simple: Any amount of time that a receiver spends working on one-handed catches is time that would be better spent work- ing on two-handed catches. "We have a one-handed rule: You had better come down with it if you go up with one hand," Stubblefield said. "Be- cause here's the deal: We've got to perfect catching the ball with two hands before we start working on catching it with one hand." That said, Stubblefield didn't seem too upset with the results, especially when the second of those catches got Dotson MONEY BALL Dotson said he treats every pass like "it's a million dollars in the air. You want it, you go get it." The junior wideout caught nine passes for 123 yards against Mary- land courtesy of Penn State Athletics >>