2019 Mountain West Football Top 52 Players: #15, Hawaii WR Cedric Byrd
Byrd is the second Warriors wide receiver to crack our list of Mountain West football’s best in 2019.
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Byrd has all the tools to thrive.
The Hawaii Warriors’ run-and-shoot offense was a lot of fun to watch last fall for a number of reasons. Chief among them was the emergence of playmakers who certainly surprised the mainland (on the islands, maybe not so much), and nobody in Hawaii’s deep well of pass catchers broke out more than Cedric Byrd, who comes in at #15 on our annual countdown of the Mountain West’s best and is our highest-ranked wide receiver.
Byrd took heat off of John Ursua by commanding 110 targets himself, finishing the year with a 67% catch rate on 79 receptions, 970 yards and nine touchdowns. He was also one of just four Mountain West players with at least five catches of 40-plus yards (the others being Boise State’s Sean Modster and Hawaii teammates Ursua and Jojo Ward).
With Ursua having moved on to the NFL and defenses sure to be better prepared for the high-flying passing game, the bar has been raised for Byrd in his senior season. It seems like it’d be tough, however, to bet against him.
