So, I must disagree with my elder Badger friend. The No. 1 is Abbrederis, and it's not really close. He has the most yards in the decade by a lot. He has three of the six best individual yardage seasons. He did that with a great QB and nice set of play-makers. He did that with a terrible set of QBs as a bellcow, and he did it as a bellcow with middling QBs.
He was smooth, good hands, some of the better speed a productive UW receiver had. He was also a good returner, solid sweep guy and could throw on trick plays. If you look at UW since Chris Chambers, Abby is hard to not call second or third best depending how you feel about Brandon Williams.
The real battle should be for No. 2, and I see three contenders:
- Nick Toon: He is hurt by losing an 800-yard season to the previous decade. His two years were the top receiver on a team that threw rarely and was up a ton and on the Wilson team, which had enough quality playmakers and was also up so much so often that he probably could've put up more impressive numbers than he did. I also was a bit of a sucker for his game. Smooth position receiver, good jump ball guy. Not a burner, but fast enough to get 10-15 on a bubble screen.
- Erickson: He was interesting because he was in two sort of weird spots. As a junior, he was the bell cow with awful QB play and a great running game. As a senior, he had middling QB play and a sub-standard running game, and often had to carry the load from the slot, which is unusual. He was 772 and 978 yards in his two good years and a good returner. He wouldn't get my vote, but I wouldn't fault someone if the gave him theirs.
-Cephus: His is an interesting case. Of anyone who got more than 500 yards in a decade this season, he had the 5th most yards in a year (901) and the fifth best average per catch (behind two Abby seasons, his own partial sophomore year and A.J. Taylor when the offense was awful). That big year he was the passing game bell cow backed by very solid QB play and a great running game, so he had the best blend of offensive focus and support. The issue is he only played less than two real seasons. The 2017 offense he was on has a mess of weapons and good Hornibrook, and he shined as a second option across nine games.
I'll probably lean Toon, just because I liked parts of his game and thought he was key in some great offenses, but either of the other two work. For some reason I'm not the most bullish on Q. Peavy had one really nice year, but basically quit/disappeared and I'm not sure his one year was better than the best of any of the other four.