The Alabama Football team has its first coaching departure of the offseason with Wide Receivers coach Holmon Wiggins leaving for a co-offensive coordinator role a Texas A&M. Wiggins coached the Alabama receivers from 2019 a role he filled after Josh Gattis and Mike Locksley left for bigger roles elsewhere. While in charge of the Alabama receivers Wiggins climbed the recruiter rankings landing top recruits like Julian Sayin, Ryan Williams, Ja'Corey Brooks, and Jalen Hale.
While on the surface level, this move comes as a shock as Wiggins is one of the nation's top recruiters however, it's not that surprising. While Wiggins was one of the nation's best recruiters there's clearly been an issue developing receivers in his tenure. Nine of the thirteen wide receivers signed during Wiggins' tenure have entered the transfer portal leaving the Alabama Football program.
In the past few seasons, the production Alabama Football has gotten out of homegrown wide receivers has fallen significantly with transfer Jameson Williams being the only first-round pick since Devonta Smith and Jaylen Waddle.
Wiggins has seen key receivers that he's drafted and coached such as Aaron Anderson, Agiye Hall, Jojo Earle, Shazz Preston, and others transfer after not panning out right away which diminished the thoughts on his coaching ability. Receivers not staying with the Alabama Football program likely hurt the team as well as the players for not buying into the process.
This will be an important position for Nick Saban and the Alabama Football team to fill with so many young talented wide receivers set to join Alabama Football in this year's signing class. It's hard to name candidates for the job but, a dream candidate would be Washington Receiver's coach JaMarcus Shephard. The Huskies have developed a trio of wide receivers that may be more talented than what some NFL teams have at wideout.
Alabama Football: Dream replacement is an Alumnus
My dream replacement for Holmon Wiggins would be Alabama Football alum Julio Jones. Jones has spent this season with the Philadelphia Eagles however, if this is his last year he'd be the perfect addition to Nick Saban's staff. We've seen Julio Jones talk about the Alabama Football program's standard on Bama Cuts and he would perfectly echo Nick Saban's message to younger players. This would give the Alabama Football team a massive leg up in recruiting as who better to learn from as a wideout than Julio Jones? The things Jones could bring technique-wise and recruiting-wise would be tough for any coach in the country to replicate.