UT Senior Receiver Finally Having Breakout Season

AUSTIN (AP) _ It would have been easy for Nate Jones to be the forgotten man in Texas' offense. That's pretty much what he was the last three seasons anyway. <br/><br/>That's far from the case

Monday, September 10th 2007, 4:47 pm

By: News On 6

AUSTIN (AP) _ It would have been easy for Nate Jones to be the forgotten man in Texas' offense. That's pretty much what he was the last three seasons anyway.

That's far from the case this year. The senior wide receiver has 17 catches for 163 yards and a touchdown in the No. 6 Longhorns' first two games, good enough to rank ninth in the country with 8 1/2 receptions per game. He had only 13 catches all of last season.

Big Limas Sweed gets all the attention from the media and defenses, but Jones has turned into the Longhorns' go-to possession receiver. And his 33-yard touchdown in the third quarter against TCU kick-started a scoring burst as Texas rallied from a 10-0 halftime deficit.

Until that catch, Jones' most famous play was a dropped pass that could have been a touchdown in a 12-0 loss to Oklahoma in 2004 when he was a freshman.

``Nate has been playing great,'' quarterback Colt McCoy said Monday. ``He's been around. He knows the system and knows the plays.''

Jones and Sweed were part of a freshman receiving crew in 2004 that struggled to live up to the success of predecessors Roy Williams, Sloan Thomas and B.J. Johnson. Texas' passing game all but disappeared as the Longhorns ran defenses into the ground behind Vince Young and Cedric Benson.

By 2005, Sweed had developed the body and playmaking skills to be one of the top receivers in the country. Jones, who started five games as a freshman, strained a hamstring, put on too much weight and got lost in the shuffle as Billy Pittman, Quan Cosby and Jordan Shipley started getting more playing time.

Injuries to Shipley and Pittman (who also was suspended for three games) in the preseason forced Jones to play a bigger role this year. With defenses double covering Sweed, Jones gets plenty of room to roam in the secondary. He had nine catches in the season opener and eight more last week.

``You never want your teammates to get hurt,'' Jones said. ``But with those two guys down, I knew I had to step in and make plays.''

The score against TCU came when McCoy was flushed out of the pocket and rolled right. Seeing his QB in trouble, Jones, who was on the far side of the field, broke off his route and tore across the end zone. McCoy spotted him with a step on the defender and floated a perfect pass for the touchdown.

``He (Jones) really developed a great relationship with Colt this summer in all the throwing they do and knew where he was going to be,'' offensive coordinator Greg Davis said.

Jones had to have a lot of patience and persistence to get to this point. And without the injuries to the other players, who knows if he'd have half the catches so far?

Even when he was spending more time on the bench than on the field, Jones said he never lost faith that his day would come. Daily talks with his family helped keep his spirits up.

``I've got a great family,'' Jones said. ``That's my mind-set: work, work, work.''