Vanderbilt’s tight end room looks a lot different after losing Eli Stowers, but the Commodores believe they’ve pieced together a workable group with a mix of transfers, a position switch and a veteran returnee.
The biggest newcomer in the mix is Jayvontay Conner, the East Carolina transfer who has quickly become a focal point of the offense. Conner, a junior who goes by the nickname “Waffle House,” said Monday that his camp has gone well.
“I honestly feel like my fall camp has been going pretty (well),’ Conner said on Monday. "Just getting better day by day, trying to build on the last day, regardless if it was good or bad. But I've been stacking some pretty good days day in and day out."
He caught 23 passes for 333 yards and three touchdowns last season and is expected to be a target this fall. Tight ends coach Brendan Flaherty said Conner’s personality stands out, but so does the way he works.
"He's a big juice guy," Flaherty said, while also lauding his consistency later. "I know in the spring there's the whole 'Waffle House' conversation, stuff like that.
But he's so light-hearted, but he does love football and he's serious about football and works very hard. … He's probably one of our top two or three well-conditioned guys right now.
So he's doing a great job. We're putting a lot on his plate."
Maurice Veney brings a different story. The Morehouse College transfer, pronounced “vun NAY,” is coming from Division II and said the jump to this stage still feels a little surreal. At 6-foot-4 and 275 pounds, he spent high school as an offensive tackle because his team didn’t have other real options, but now he gets to play the position he always wanted.
Veney caught 32 passes for 381 yards and three scores last season. He also said he never expected Vanderbilt to be part of the picture until a teammate sent his tape to an agency, which passed it along to the Commodores.
After his visit, he said he didn’t really look elsewhere and admitted he was “still on a little high right now” when asked about doing media interviews. He added, "… my journey was going down a certain path that I didn't think I was probably going to end up at a Power 5 school.
So being here every day… I'm grateful for that."
His spring was slowed by a leg injury, but Flaherty said Vanderbilt liked the player first and everything else followed.
"What drew us (to him) was his tape," Flaherty said. "We thought he was a really, really good player and from there we brought him up on the visit.
He just fit in really well with the guys and he's got a humble demeanor about himself, but very workman-like and he's not afraid to put his face in there. Just physical and super appreciative."
Walter Taylor is the most intriguing piece in the room because this is his first season at tight end. He began at Vanderbilt as a quarterback, then went to Colorado and Miami (Ohio), where he did not play, before returning to Nashville. Flaherty said Taylor has shown enough flashes to make people take notice, even if the learning curve is still there.
"He still needs to get more consistent," Flaherty said. "He knows that.
He'll do some stuff that's like, oh my… if you do that every single time, you're an NFL player. And then there's other times where it's still like he's new to the tight end room, still trying to figure it out.
… He definitely flashes."
Flaherty said all of the new faces have made real progress since the spring, when the group was still sorting through the offense and getting comfortable with one another.
"I definitely think (the new tight ends) have grown since the spring," said tight end coach Brendan Flaherty on Monday. "Spring was a lot of new faces, everyone learning the offense."
Those three are battling alongside returnee starter Cole Spence, who has 30 catches, 334 yards and four touchdowns across his four previous seasons as a Commodore. The room also includes freshmen Tilden Riley, Palmer Riley and Adam Gehm, junior retiree Elijah Rooney and senior Gabe Fisher, who has spent most of his Vanderbilt career at fullback but could see more time at tight end now.
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