Neyor’s former head coach at Lamar, Laban DeLay, said Saturday that Tennessee is getting “a big target” with “a lot of potential and a lot of upside” in Neyor, who plans to join the Vols later this month. He has three remaining seasons of eligibility, and DeLay said he believes Neyor still can improve at Tennessee after putting up big numbers with the Cowboys this season as a redshirt sophomore.
“I think there is no ceiling for him, to be honest,” DeLay said of Neyor, who’s ranked by 247Sports as the No. 22 overall transfer and the No. 4 transfer wide receiver for the 2022 cycle. “He can make All-SEC. He still has three years of eligibility. I think that he has a future on Sundays with the NFL.
“I just think there’s a tall, tall ceiling for him, potentially. And I’m excited for him, excited for his family, and we’re all rooting for him.”
Neyor caught 44 passes for 878 yards and 12 touchdowns this season at Wyoming. He accounted for 41.5 percent of the Cowboys’ receiving yards and all but three of their touchdown catches.
DeLay said Neyor is “kind of a weapon all over the field,” adding that it’s “hard to pinpoint one thing” he does best. His size and leaping ability make him a dangerous downfield and red-zone target, and he’s fast and agile enough to be effective on short and mid-range routes.
“He’s a big target,” said DeLay, who’s now the head coach at South Grand Prairie (Texas) High School. “He can run. Wyoming, from my understanding, they have had a really good strength and conditioning program, so Isaiah came over to my house a couple weeks ago, and you can tell that he’s thickened up. He’s increased his speed. He’s always been able to jump out of the gym. He’s always had a really good vertical, so I think that the potential for him to grow is still there.
“And I think that’s probably one reason why he went into the portal, is that Wyoming’s offense wasn’t really — his dream is to go to the NFL, or to have a shot. And Wyoming, that type of offense wasn’t really going to give him the opportunity to grow like that.
“As he was looking around, that’s one thing that he really considered, is who the wide receiver coaches are and what type of system, and what type of history or success that system has had.
“I still think that there’s a lot of potential and a lot of upside for Isaiah still.”
Neyor ranked seventh nationally among Football Bowl Subdivision players this season with an average 19.95 yards per catch, and his 12 touchdown receptions finished tied for No. 7 nationally.
DeLay said Neyor decided to leave Wyoming after three years in the program because he “just wants more targets” than the Cowboys gave him in their “run-oriented” offense. DeLay said Neyor wants “an opportunity to grow and sharpen his game up a little bit.”
“And nothing against Wyoming. He loved it there,” DeLay added. “It’s just that that system is run-oriented, and it’s a play-action pass here or there, or a deep shot downfield. Isaiah did his job. He went up and got it whenever he was targeted, but he just wants a little bit more.”
Tennessee’s fast-paced, high-scoring offense under coach
Josh Heupel should give him plenty of chances. The Vols’ two leading receivers this season,
Cedric Tillman and
Velus Jones Jr., caught more than 60 passes each and combined for 19 touchdown receptions.
Neyor was planning to take an official visit to Knoxville the weekend of Jan. 21. But he was sold enough on his opportunity there that he committed to Tennessee on Saturday despite never having been to its campus.
“I really thought he was going to take a visit to Tennessee before he made that final decision,” DeLay said. “But I know that, at the same time, he kept reiterating how good he felt with Coach Heupel and the offense and his opportunity there. And, to be quite frank, to get this behind him so he can relax and move on instead of getting peppered by different colleges throughout the country.”
With Neyor now just a couple weeks away from joining the Vols, DeLay said “these next few months are going to be huge for him.” He will get to participate in Tennessee’s spring practice and spend the entire offseason with the Vols, giving him plenty of time to learn their system and adjust to playing in a new program.
DeLay said he expects Neyor to fare well in the SEC. He mostly flew under the radar coming out of high school after playing just one season at the varsity level during his time at Lamar, and DeLay said he’s not surprised that Neyor has made a name for himself in college.
“He got overlooked,” DeLay said. “He came to us from a charter school in Arlington. He moved down from Minnesota, and then, whenever he came to Arlington, he didn’t come to my high school immediately. So whenever he did come to me, at the end of his sophomore year, he had to wait 365 (days).
“Our (University Interscholarstic League) rules say that you’re not eligible for varsity competition unless you’ve been in attendance in that school for one calendar year, so he actually played JV for us as a junior. … But, obviously, you can imagine he tore up every JV (team) that we played, along with our varsity defense as a scout-team player.
“And then his senior year we just had limited film on him, and then we also had
Trevon West, who’s at (Oklahoma) right now. And then we had another wideout, (Stephen F. Austin freshman)
Cam Brady.
“He got overlooked a little bit. But whenever Wyoming came through, I told Coach (Mike) Bath, I said, ‘People are overlooking this guy, and he’s a diamond in the rough.’ Wyoming took the chance, and the rest is kind of history now.”
