One Last Run - Chapter 9 | The art of being a wide receiver

With one season remaining and just one credit hour on his class schedule this semester, the time has arrived for Kansas wideout Luke Grimm to pour everything he’s got into his final season of KU football.

As he does, we’ll follow him every step of the way in this weekly diary that will chronicle Grimm’s 2024 season.

Some of what you’ll read here, in Grimm’s own words, will focus on the stuff happening between the lines — big wins, memorable catches and the grind of the season. But a lot of it will focus on Grimm the person, a 23-year-old senior who has given everything he has to the program and seen it pay off in a big way.

The Grimm File

Age: 23 | Height: 6-0 | Weight: 190 | Position: Wide Receiver

Notable: Last season, Grimm became the 16th Jayhawk to reach the 100-catch mark for his career... The senior wideout enters the 2024 season with 126 career receptions, putting him within striking distance of climbing into 4th place (155) on KU's all-time receiving chart and with an outside shot at cracking the top 3 (214 and 219)... He also is less than 300 yards away from reaching the top 5 on KU's receiving yards list... Dubbed "The Grimm Reaper" early in his career, Grimm appeared in 6 games as a true freshman and has finished each of the past three seasons in the top four in receptions, including leading the team in 2022 and finishing second last season... A 3-star recruit by Rivals.com, 247 Sports & ESPN, Grimm was ranked as the No. 7 wide receiver in the state of Missouri by Max Preps in the 2020 class.

Updating Grimm's stats/season: Through 8 games, Grimm leads the Jayhawks in catches (38), receiving yards (429) and receiving touchdowns (5) and has moved up to the No. 4 spot on KU's all-time receiving list with 164 career receptions. He also sits at No. 2 on KU's all-time receiving touchdowns list, with 22, and in 5th place on the program's all-time receiving yards list, with 2,211 career receiving yards, just 36 yards shy of moving into the No. 4 spot.

Grimm and the Jayhawks had massive goals for the 2024 season entering the year, but at 2-6 overall entering their second and final bye week this week, it's win-out-or-else for the Jayhawks' hopes of making another bowl game.

Ever the optimist and believer in his team, Grimm knows that and said after last week's gut-wrenching 29-27 loss at K-State that the Jayhawks will get things fixed and get right.

Luke Grimm scores and celebrates his touchdown at K-State last weekend. [Sarah Buchanan photo]

Like his teammates and most people in the Kansas football stratosphere, Grimm was devastated after the Jayhawks’ latest close-call loss to K-State.

Instead of dropping his head and sulking, however, the senior wideout stood tall in the media room after the loss and continued to hammer home the message that the Jayhawks will get things fixed.

Time will tell if that happens or not, but it’s no surprise that Grimm both feels and operates that way. He’s a pro. He has always conducted himself in that manner and he’s never been afraid of the work or any part of the game being stacked against him.

Makes sense, too. Because even though he didn’t know any of these guys, the wideouts he grew up watching and idolizing certainly laid out that type of path for him to follow.

His favorite player was former Missouri Tiger Jeremy Maclin. Cut him some slack here. He did group up in Missouri and several of his friends were Mizzou fans.

His love of Maclin’s game was so strong that it turned him into a big Philadelphia Eagles fan as soon as Maclin was drafted with the 19^th pick of Round 1 in the 2019 NFL draft.

“I already loved Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook, Brian Dawkins, Michael Vick, Desean Jackson; that team was so fun to watch. They were just throwing deep balls down the field all the time, making big plays and then the guys on defense were just knocking peoples’ heads off. I was just like, ‘Dude, this team is so cool,’ and I also loved the color green when I was younger so it was kind of perfect.”

The league was full of high-profile, elite wide receivers back then, and Grimm loved nearly all of them.

“I think my favorite guys growing up were like Santonio Holmes, Santana Moss, Julio Jones, Dez Bryant, Jordy Nelson, Randall Cobb, just like all those guys around 2007, from when I was like 5 years old to like 12.”

“Andre Johnson. Calvin Johnson. I just loved the art of receivers. It didn’t matter what their best skill was or what their play style was. I just loved watching a great NFL receiver be perfect at his craft.”

Grimm has certainly done the best he can to replicate that throughout his college career.

Known by teammates as one of the hardest workers and most reliable performers from Day 1, Grimm recently received some national love for the season he has turned in thus far.

According to the Pro Football Focus College account on X, Grimm currently has the nation’s largest streak of targets without a drop at 55.

Most Targets WITHOUT A Drop This Season:

🔵 Luke Grimm, Kansas: 55@KU_Football pic.twitter.com/0Q4GLBYS8X
— PFF College (@PFF_College) October 30, 2024

That’s not to say Grimm has caught every ball thrown his way. But the passes that have fallen incomplete have not been ruled drops by Grimm.

A lot of the reason for that goes back to Grimm’s lifelong appreciation of the finer points of playing his position.

“To me, the art of being a great receiver is being able to be deceptive and physically demanding on every play.”

“On a pass play, you might make it look like the ball’s not coming your way but you know it is and then at the last second you explode through the defender to either jump over him or nudge him out of the way, jump through him, to make the catch.”

“The same thing blocking-wise or if you’re catching a ball over the middle, it’s 3^rd-and-8 and you catch it three yards short and you’ve got to dropstep, get up the field, be willing to take a couple hits and fall forward for the first down.”

“I just think it’s so important as a wide receiver to understand that even though you’re outside of the box, the game is just as physically demanding unless you shy away from it.”