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Cameron Dickerson, Northwestern Wildcats football, No. 19

Cameron Dickerson caught a pretty sweet touchdown last year, and although he hasn't seen the field much, people rave about his playmaking ability.

By Rodger Sherman
Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sport

we're under 20 we're under 20 we're under 20 Cameron Dickerson!

C-Dick isn't Northwestern's top wide receiver -- he'll once again be a backup at one of the outside receiving positions -- but the 6'3 sophomore from New Jersey is just another dude in a room that's been said to have a lot of talent. The passing game isn't even where Northwestern earned its bread in 2012, so there are exciting things in the future. Let's take a look at Cam and oh man under three weeks.

Origin myth

Cameron hails from Englewood, New Jersey, which is across a couple of bridges from where I live, and played for Bergen Catholic, who are 16-time Jersey state champs. His high school numbers weren't that crazy -- 701 yards, seven touchdowns -- and we don't even have a highlight video! What gives! Even if we can't marvel at Dickerson's highlight tape, we can thank Dickerson for establishing a Bergen Catholic pipeline: 3-star safety Kyle Queiro is now on Northwestenr, his brother, 3-star linebacker Cam Queiro, is an NU commit in the class of 2014, and Dickerson's brother, 4-star tight end Garrett, is considering Northwestern against Michigan and Stanford.

Anyway, Dickerson was a three-star wide out some places, a two-star elsewhere, ranking as the No. 123 wide receiver and No. 28 player in Jersey on 247's composite. He had offers from Vanderbilt, Indiana, Duke, Akron, and of course, Harvard, but chose Northwestern the July before his senior year.

At Northwestern

Cam had a relatively quiet year as Rashad Lawrence's backup at the split end position: nine catches for 54 yards with a touchdown.

Career highlight

Everybody swooned really hard over Trevor Siemian's touchdown to tie the game at the end the first half against Michigan, and for good reason: Siemian had led a pretty two-minute drill in a half where the offense wasn't doing great. It was a perfectly thrown ball, with touch and accuracy, right to the pylon, catching the Wolverine cornerback off his stride and incapable of making a play on the ball. We barely even noticed that the person making the catch was Dickerson, quickly getting downfield and making the touchdown snag gracefully over his outside shoulder. The 19-yard reception remains the longest of his career and his only touchdown. Perhaps the coolest thing about the whole endeavor is that Siemian was looking Dickerson the whole time: the coaches called the play for Dickerson to attack his corner one-on-one, and got six points.

Anagram of choice

Discovering the Wildcats' true inner selves through spelling

Cameron Dickerson, anagrammed, is

DOMINANCE ROCKERS

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (HEADBANG) (HEADBANG) (HEADBANG) NORTHWESTERN FOOTBALL: THE DOMINANCE ROCKERS

(Also considered: "men cocoa drinkers," which is probably about half of cocoa drinkers, "ordinance mockers," which is people really interested in crapping on city government, "raccoon deer minks," which is just several plural animals, "dork necromancies," which yeah if you know what "necromancy" means you're probably a dork, "a moronic rednecks," which AHHHHH EXTRA S WHY DID YOU HAVE TO BE THERE THAT'S PERFECT.)

relevant musical selection

"Down and Out," Cam'ron ft. Kanye West

a) the beat is SO SOULFUL, DON'T YOU AGREE?!?!?!

b) "now my dashboard is wooden from my hard-tangled grammar/interior inferior, star-spangled banner/car game bananas"

i mean

i mean i don't even know how he did that

but it's the most incredible thing ever

I love Cam'ron so much, and this is why.

Dickerson tweets

I keep forgetting this segment! You'll get Kyle Prater's tweets tomorrow.

FLOCKA

dude you're a sophomore

How he can help

Those who watch Northwestern football practice rave about Dickerson's playmaking ability -- here's a post on him from Inside NU, featuring a nasty clip of a 40-yard touchdown he had in spring ball where he physically dominates Nick VanHoose and Davion Fleming. They make the case that Dickerson can be Northwestern's top receiver, and project him to start in the slot.

I'll err on the side of caution. If a random wide out is going to surge up the depth chart somewhere, I'd expect it to be Kyle Prater. I see Dickerson playing a similar role to the one he played last year, with perhaps a bit more reps now that he's more experienced in the system.

Depth chart projection

We still have Dickerson projected as Lawrence's backup at the "Z" spot. For those unfamiliar, the "Z" is the guy who lines up furthest from the QB and is anchored to the line of scrimmage. It's a pretty prototypical "outside receiver" setup, and a big guy like Dickerson -- 6'3, 200 -- works fine.

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