Jordan Matthews has been a great player and representative of Vanderbilt during his tenure as a Commodore. (Don McPeak-USA TODAY Sports)
The Southeastern Conference has had plenty of great receivers in its long and storied history.
Auburn’s Terry Beasley, Ray Perkins and Julio Jones of Alabama, Carlos Alvarez and Wes Chandler of Florida, A.J. Green of Georgia, Earl Bennett of Vanderbilt and Craig Yeast of Kentucky among them. Now there’s another name to add to the list and he might be the best ever considering the circumstances he’s played under since his first year.
His name is Jordan Matthews and he plays for the Vanderbilt Commodores. He is a 6-foot-3, 212-pound senior from Madison, Alabama. In a recent Q&A with Matthews he said his goal was to “Be legendary.”
I think he’s reached his goal.
Against Texas A&M on Oct. 26, Matthews caught eight passes for 92 yards. It was his 17-yard catch in the second quarter that gave him 3,107 career receiving yards, the most by any SEC receiver in history. He now has 66 catches for 860 yards and five touchdowns this season which gives him career numbers of 216 catches for 3,172 yards and 22 touchdowns.
“He just comes to work every single day and does the best that he can to help this team win and have success,” said Vanderbilt coach James Franklin of Matthews’ chase of SEC receiving records. “If there is a by-product of that, wonderful. We don’t talk about those things, we don’t emphasize those things.”
He is on the watch lists for the Biletnikoff Award, the Maxwell and the CFPA Wide Receiver Trophy.
In 2012, Matthews started all 13 games and finished the year as the Commodores’ all-time single-season leader with 1,323 receiving yards. He also posted the second-highest receptions total in team history with 94 catches — which also tied LSU’s Josh Reed for No. 2 all-time among SEC players — and eight touchdowns.
He topped the season by being named First Team All-SEC (AP and Coaches) and second-team All-America by Lindy’s.
After a career at Madison Academy that saw the wide receiver named to the Alabama Class 3A All-State team as a senior, Matthews chose to play his college football at Vanderbilt instead of some other school that was famous for throwing the football.
So why Vanderbilt? Matthews was also a high school member of the National Honor Society and that was a big influence on his choice.
“Only opportunity to play college football,” he said, “and world class academics.”
Matthews says that to be academically successful at a school like Vanderbilt just takes hard work and it doesn’t hurt to have a little heavenly help. He says his ritual before taking a test he has “Intense prayer.”
Matthews is not only appreciated at Vanderbilt, he’s won the admiration of the rest of the coaches in the Southeastern Conference.
“I think Jordan Matthews is one of the better players in all of college football; regardless of how you cover him, he catches the ball and makes a bunch of plays for them with reverses and different things they do,” said Florida coach Will Muschamp, whose team has the task of trying to contain Matthews this weekend.
“They do a great job of getting him the football and featuring him, but I think he’s just an outstanding player. But multiple offensively in a lot of different looks and the things they do.”
With the injury to Austyn Carta-Samuels, Vanderbilt will likely start Patton Robinette, a redshirt freshman whose first start was against Texas A&M in Kyle Field, at Florida.
“It’s hard to go on the road for your first start in a stadium like [Texas A&M]. I never saw him get riled or anything, he did a really good job keeping his emotions in check,” said Matthews. “The guy is young so we have to make him more comfortable so the more we do that, the more he’ll continue to improve. It has to be the guys around him who continue to make him comfortable.”
Matthews knows that for a young quarterback, the key to his success might be the play of the rest of the Commodores.
“You just have to go play,” Matthews said. “We know they have really great players, but it’s all going to come down to that day and how they play on Saturday.”
If Matthews catches a pass against the Gators, it will be the 30th consecutive game in which he has at least one catch dating back to 2011. Given his history and ability, and with at least four games left in his career, the chances are the receiving records that Matthews leaves behind him are going to be … well, legendary.
Just like he wanted.
