SPRINGDALE — Drake Wymer and his family were the last ones to leave the Jarrell Williams Bulldog Stadium field Friday night.
The sophomore receiver wanted to soak up the moment after his 24-yard game-winning touchdown catch in the 32-28 win over Rogers High.
Wymer posed for plenty of pictures with teammates and family before walking off the field more than an hour after the game ended. And he had a near-dead cellphone full of texts, calls, Facebook and Twitter notifications waiting for him when he finally got back to the locker room after making the biggest play of his life.
“My phone was blowing up,” Wymer said. “When I hopped in the car, I had to put my phone on the charger real fast.”
Wymer has quickly become a contributor at a position he didn’t anticipate playing this fall.
The 6-foot-6, 202-pounder competed for the starting quarterback job with fellow sophomore Fuller Chandler during spring and fall camp. Wymer agreed to start working at receiver when the coaching staff named Chandler the quarterback, displaying a selflessness his coaches admired.
“The kid just wanted to play ball,” receivers coach Nate Middleton said. “He handled it very, very well. It was decided. The next day he’s there with me and he got to work. And he’s improved a good bit just because it was more raw as far as stance goes and technique and a couple things. He’s come a long ways in just a few weeks.”
Wymer benefited from the advice he received after making the move from older brother Josiah, who is a senior tight end for the Bulldogs with a scholarship offer from Louisiana-Monroe.
“I told him to just keep his head up,” Josiah Wymer said. “There’s other opportunities on the team that you can help the team. If it comes down to where you need to play quarterback, you can do that. If they want you to play receiver, you can do that.”
Having an older brother on the team has helped Drake. The two will also play varsity basketball together this year after previously not having been on the same sports team since playing youth football in Little Rock as kids.
“Last time we played together I was in like kindergarten and he was in second grade,” Drake Wymer said. “I think it’s really fun to play with Josiah again. I’m just glad we get to do it for one more year before he goes off to college.”
The younger Wymer will still have two years of eligibility and could use it at a position where his height and natural talent has given him a chance to earn playing time despite only have worked at receiver for a month. He is tied for third on the team with six catches for 53 yards in the Bulldogs’ four games.
“I’ve got down the routes because I played quarterback and I knew what all the routes were already,” Wymer said. “And I could get out there and run it. I’ve got to work on my blocking a lot more and work on catching. I’m getting really comfortable with it.”
Wymer had focused heavily on running fade routes leading up to the Rogers game, repeatedly practicing the play so Springdale could utilize his height advantage and athletic ability in the red zone. The work paid off Friday.
“We’ve been telling Drake for a month now that all the work he’s been putting in at receiver on running that fade route was going to pay off down the road,” coach Shane Patrick said. “And he’s really had kind of a rough week in practice catching it. But he came out (Friday). And me and coach Middleton told him he’d make the catch when it counted. And he did.”