Hopkins, Watkins are no strangers to each other's theatrics

Dec 3, 2015, 1:09 PM

HOUSTON -- When they played together at Clemson, Sammy Watkins wasn't totally sold on DeAndre Hopkins' style.

Watkins liked comfort. He was famous for his baggy shorts or sweatpants, once refusing to change out of flip-flops for a television interview -- despite the pleas of his quarterback who just "wanted him to look decent."

Hopkins liked tighter pants, flashier hats. And then there were the capri pants, which he still sports.

They weren't really Watkins' thing.

"I call it foreign," said Watkins, a Buffalo Bills first-round pick in 2014. "He dresses like a foreigner more so, with the hats and things."

DeAndre Hopkins and Sammy Watkins have stayed friends after their time together at Clemson. Kevin Jairaj/USA TODAY Sports
Watkins soon emulated his older teammate's training.

He learned about route running from Hopkins, and about patience too. Hopkins has passed on the wisdom he has learned from others. They competed during practices and games and they improved together.

Over time, Watkins picked up some fashion tips from his teammate.

"He's still probably got some of my clothes from Clemson," said Hopkins, a Houston Texans first-round pick in 2013. "I think like, draft day, when I saw him in New York, he had a jacket of mine, but I didn't say anything to him. That's my little bro."

Watkins even relented on the capris, and bought a pair of his own.

This weekend the friends will reunite when the Texans travel to Buffalo to play the Bills. They're long removed from the days when each competed with the other to see who could make the most impressive catch -- but that's still sort of there.

"We always knew we were going to have a relationship because of the relationship that we built at Clemson," Hopkins said. "No matter where we went, if we were rivals in the same conference, we knew we would still be brothers off the field. We keep in touch a lot."

Finesse characterized Hopkins' game.

The first time he remembers making a one-handed catch, he was in 10th grade at D.W. Daniel High School near Clemson, South Carolina. Later that year, with Hopkins not getting recruited much, his high school coaches wanted to show some visiting coaches from Clemson just what they'd miss without him.

"I called a corner route," said Randy Robinson, Hopkins' high school coach. "I told our quarterback, you know what to do. He overthrew it. … 'Nuk' caught it with one hand and ran out of the back of the end zone."

Some of the Clemson coaches started jumping up and down in excitement.

They had trouble finding gloves big enough for Hopkins' hands, so a local salesman had to order them especially for his school.

They did a simple drill in practice in which the receiver would stand 10 feet from a coach and catch the ball. That quickly got too easy for Hopkins, so he started catching them with one hand. When that became mundane, he started catching them by the nose of the ball.

Would Robinson have liked if Hopkins caught more passes with both hands? Well, he never dropped one with one hand, so Robinson wasn't about to complain.

Watkins offered similar theatrics for South Fort Myers High School in Florida. Grant Redhead, Watkins' high school coach, once watched with awe as Watkins reached up and caught a high pass during a game by the nose of the football.

"I looked at my assistant and I said I don't think we're going to see too many guys do that ever again," Redhead said. "He had good-sized hands, but the strength of them. He could catch the ball with his fingertips but it wouldn't go through."

When Clemson coaches recruited Sammy Watkins (right), they pitched him on the idea of playing opposite DeAndre Hopkins. AP Photo/ Richard Shiro
Hopkins was the first to Clemson and was their best receiver as a freshman, though it took a while before his skill translated. Watkins came the year after with the pitch that working with Hopkins would create major problems for opposing defenses. He liked the idea.

"It was a show at our practice when we had DeAndre on one side and Sammy on the other side," said Clemson offensive coordinator Jeff Scott, who was the receivers coach when Hopkins and Watkins were there.

Scott still shows practice film from those days to the receivers he coaches today.

The top-ranked Tigers have play cards honoring them. One has a Texans' logo for Hopkins, the other a silhouette of Watkins. The fact that the two of them became first-round picks who make highlight-reel catches in the NFL also serves as a handy recruiting tool.

Watkins could accelerate lighting fast, getting open even if his quarterback didn't think he was at first.

"The first time I got a chance to throw, I tried to throw it as far as I could, maybe 70 yards," said Tajh Boyd, who was Clemson's quarterback when Watkins and Hopkins were there. "I’d just never seen anybody pick up speed the way he did."

And then he would lower his shoulder and try to run through tackles. He would attack the ball while it was in the air, aggressively grabbing it, whether he was using one hand or two.

"I've seen Sammy run a 20-yard dig, and I've just thrown it on a rope and he one-hands it," Boyd said. "It's almost like it's an ego booster for them, but not for the quarterback because it's like, I just threw my body into that and it was nothing."

Hopkins' route-running set him apart. That and his athleticism and abnormally large hands. They helped him effortlessly pluck the ball out of the air. A catch trapped on his helmet is one that captured the imagination of Clemson fans and made his nickname "Nuk" a rallying cry at games.

"All you can do is say 'Wow,'" Boyd said. "It almost makes that emoji face with the eyes wide. That's the expression."

Practices were competitive between the two, with each trying to make a more impressive catch than the next, between the diving catches, the one-handed grabs and the sideline plays. They'd stay afterward constantly, competing to see who could make the most consecutive one-handed catches in a row.

"Most times he used to win because his hands are like 6X," Watkins said.

DeAndre Hopkins leads the league with 144 targets and is tied for first among receivers with nine touchdowns. Andy Lyons/Getty Images
The coaches at DW Daniel High School had a group text going during the Texans' Monday-night game against the Cincinnati Bengals two and a half weeks ago. When they saw Hopkins make a left-handed grab in the end zone, it was perfectly familiar.

"Wow, Superman came out of the phone booth to make that play," one said.

It was an old joke they used to make back when Hopkins' theatrics became commonplace to them.

Hopkins gets plenty of opportunities to make those catches (he leads the NFL in targets with 142) and he rarely disappoints. He has caught one on his helmet against he Jaguars this year. He's caught several on the sideline. He has made more than one leaping touchdown grab. His quarterbacks -- all three he has played with this season alone -- know throwing the ball up for Hopkins usually ends well.

Watkins gets fewer opportunities.

He has been targeted only 48 times. Against the New England Patriots during another Monday night game, Watkins pulled in an off-target pass in the fourth quarter, leaping up to grab it with just one hand. He had three targets and no catches in the first three quarters of that game. In the fourth he had four targets and three catches for 39 yards. Watkins told the Buffalo News he wanted his quarterbacks to target him whenever he was one-on-one, whether they thought he was open or not. It's a hallmark of both players that they're open more often than they're thought to be.

At the height of Watkins' frustration, Hopkins texted him, drawing on the things he learned from his mentor, Colts receiver Andre Johnson, the former Texans great.

"My first year in the NFL, the ball [was] not coming my way, but I had a guy beside me to keep me composed throughout the whole season," Hopkins said. "Not really worry about things I couldn't control. I used to just give him advice that Andre used to give me."

The next week Watkins had 158 yards and two touchdowns in the first half of the Bills' game.

"He texted me, ‘God got a plan, man, just take it slow,'" Watkins said. "And that was big when he reached out to me."

The 1,500 miles between them doesn't change that now. Watkins still emulates Hopkins' style.

http://espn.go.com/blog/houston-texans/post/_/id/14340/deandre-hopkins-and-sammy-watkins-are-no-stranger-to-each-others-theatrics

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Hopkins, Watkins are no strangers to each other's theatrics

Re: Hopkins, Watkins are no strangers to each other's theatrics

Re: Hopkins, Watkins are no strangers to each other's theatrics

I'd be cool if all the UNC and Clemson guys on the Bills/Tex

Re: Hopkins, Watkins are no strangers to each other's theatrics

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