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NASHVILLE—Vanderbilt football has found a generally sustainable formula and pitch to transfer portal recruits at a number of positions, but its hit rate at one position hasn’t stacked up seamlessly with a number of others.
Wide receiver has often been a position of struggle for this Vanderbilt program to recruit under Vanderbilt offensive coordinator Tim Beck, who hasn’t built a brand on airing it out as much as he has on controlling the clock and line of scrimmage. Beck has often had to make difficult pitches to receivers that could go to pass-dominant offenses rather than the one he runs–which requires a significant blocking role–but as his tenure has progressed, he’s begun to land productive receivers more consistently.
Old Dominion transfer Ja’Cory Thomas is a microcosm of that.
Thomas was a splash transfer addition for this Vanderbilt program after a season in which he went for 41 catches for 719 yards and five touchdowns during the 2025 season at Old Dominion. He’s the rare highly-touted receiver recruit that this program has been able to land. Now, he needs to deliver.
Watching Thomas in the spring was something that everyone in Vanderbilt's McGugin Center had to be intentional about. Until the last day of the spring ball, Thomas wasn’t making splash plays consistently and still appeared to be in the midst of a learning curve.
“I'm really trying to really get into the playbook,” Thomas said. “We're just working on the things that I feel like I need to get better at and it’s just really cleaning up everything, like, breaks, just working on my hands, just being physical, all those things.”
Thomas finding the end zone and subsequently meeting the media at FirstBank Stadium throughout Vanderbilt’s spring game indicated that he may be turning the corner, but his spring as a whole was largely up and down–at least in practice sessions that the media was privy to.
If Vanderbilt’s offense is going to be anywhere near as dynamic as it was a season ago, Thomas has to be better than he was in the spring.
Vanderbilt already has its No. 1 receiver in Junior Sherrill and appears to have a few solid complementary pieces in Alabama transfer Cole Adams as well as returners Joseph McVay, Brycen Coleman and Tristen Brown, but its best option to be the No. 2 is Thomas–and it isn’t all that close. Thomas is more experienced and has a skillset more dynamic than just about anyone outside of Sherrill in the room.
“I'm kind of on the big side for a receiver,” Thomas said after Vanderbilt’s spring game. “So a lot of people don't think I'm a great route runner, but I think I'm a true route runner. I can see my hips getting out of brakes. I mean, I get physical and I can be finesse too.”
Now, that skillset has to turn into production. Thomas demonstrated that it can at the end of the spring and has a mulligan because of his relative unfamiliarity with Beck’s system, but he has an important fall ahead.
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Joey Dwyer is the lead writer on Vanderbilt Commodores On SI. He found his first love in college sports at nearby Lipscomb University and decided to make a career of telling its best stories. He got his start doing a Notre Dame basketball podcast from his basement as a 14-year-old during COVID and has since aimed to make that 14-year-old proud. Dwyer has covered Vanderbilt sports for three years and previously worked for 247 Sports and Rivals. He contributes to Seth Davis' Hoops HQ, Basket Under Review and Mainstreet Nashville.
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