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Danny Gray | SMU | 6’0/186
Gray was considered a three-star recruit who originally committed to Missouri but was unable to qualify academically, leading him to go the JUCO route for his first two collegiate seasons. He excelled at Blinn CC where he was a First Team All-Conference selection and garnered interest from several Power Five programs as the 13th rated JUCO recruit overall from the 2020 class. Instead of going with a big school and scrapping it out for playing time, he chose to stay close to home and attend SMU, where he started immediately.
The pandemic and a nagging injury cut short his first year in Dallas, but he still played in 8-of-10 games, starting seven. The deep threat wasted no time producing, as he pulled in 19 receptions for 331 yards and four touchdowns in his first five games while catching a pair of 60+ yard touchdowns in the process, showing just how explosive Gray can be. Though he was banged up the following two games against Cincinnati’s suffocating secondary and Temple, he rebounded in their final game of the season against Temple to beat up on the Golden Hurricane’s secondary by securing 8-of-13 passes for 93 yards. On the year, his advanced numbers of 2.08 yards per route and 9.6 YAC were strong, as he lined up wide 62% of the time.
He continued to ascend last year by supplanting former WR1 Reggie Roberson as Tanner Mordecai’s preferred receiver on the outside where he played 90% of his snaps. Though still limited to 10 games, Gray put up the kind of season we were hoping for, catching 49-of-72 targets for a 68% catch rate, 803 yards, 16.4 YPC and nine touchdowns despite missing two regular season games and skipping the bowl. He…