If it’s possible to fly under the radar as an elite incoming recruit, Javon McKinley is doing it. One of California’s most prolific receivers in history—putting up monster numbers in one of the state’s most competitive conferences—McKinley now steps onto campus at Notre Dame with a depth chart filled with uncertainty.
McKinley’s big, strong and polished. That’s usually a good thing for a young skill player. While freshmen have come along slowly under Brian Kelly at receiver, the head coach has a trio of freshman newcomers who will test that theory immediately.
JAVON MCKINLEY
6'3", 205 lbs.
Freshman, WR
RECRUITING PROFILE
A consensus 4-star recruit, McKinley was a U.S. Army All-American, a multi-season selection on the LA Times’ All-Area first-team, the 2014 All-Area Back of the Year, and 2014 Southern Section 5 Player of the Year.
He had offers from USC, UCLA, Oregon, Stanford, Arizona State, and Ohio State before picking Notre Dame.
FUTURE POTENTIAL
Until we see him, let’s just call McKinley’s potential incredibly intriguing. I made the physical comparison around Signing Day to Michael Floyd, and that might be setting McKinley up for failure. (Especially with people knowing how I feel about MMF as a player.) But as a ready-made physical specimen, McKinley can do just about everything, and we’ve already seen him do it against high end high school competition.
That said, dominating at the high school level with his size is different than understanding how to do that in the college game. And we’ll need to see just how good McKinley’s speed is—Floyd ended up being Notre Dame’s most prolific receiver in history because of his physicality and because he had sneaky-good speed that allowed him to run behind defensive backs.
CRYSTAL BALL
I think McKinley’s too good to keep off the field. But I also think his freshman ceiling will be in line with the better of Brian Kelly’s young receivers, so I’m still going to put a cap on his season totals around 15-20 catches. (True freshman TJ Jones had 23 grabs, when Notre Dame’s receiving depth chart was essentially empty.)
What does that mean for the future? Nothing. We saw Will Fuller go from zero-to-sixty when he went from freshman to sophomore season. We saw Kelly feed the football to Michael Floyd when his offense needed it. Kelly will do what the offense needs to score points.
If McKinley were the early enrollee, I think all of us would’ve been buzzing about him instead of Stepherson. And those 15 practices might be enough to give Stepherson the nod over McKinley, though the latter is far more game-ready from a physicality standpoint.
Regardless, Notre Dame’s young receivers—Stepherson, McKinley and Chase Claypool—might be the most exciting incoming class at a position that I’ve seen in my time covering the Irish. so while it’s still too early to say it, McKinley could be the best of the bunch.
2016’s Irish A-to-Z
Josh Adams
Josh Barajas
Alex Bars
Asmar Bilal
Hunter Bivin
Grant Blankenship
Jonathan Bonner
Ian Book
Parker Boudreaux
Miles Boykin
Justin Brent
Devin Butler
Jimmy Byrne
Daniel Cage
Chase Claypool
Nick Coleman
Te’von Coney
Shaun Crawford
Scott Daly
Micah Dew-Treadway
Liam Eichenberg
Jalen Elliott
Nicco Feritta
Tarean Folston
Mark Harrell
Daelin Hayes
Jay Hayes
Tristen Hoge
Corey Holmes
Torii Hunter Jr.
Alizé Jones
Jamir Jones
Jarron Jones
Jonathan Jones
Tony Jones Jr.
Khalid Kareem
DeShone Kizer
Julian Love
Tyler Luatua
Cole Luke
Greer Martini
Jacob Matuska
Mike McGlinchey
Colin McGovern
Deon McIntosh