A few weeks after Jojo Phillips starred in the Pop-Tarts Bowl, leading BYU to a win over Georgia Tech, he was back in Provo, begging his quarterback to throw.

It didn’t have to be a lot. Phillips would take any reps he could get with Bear Bachmeier in the indoor practice facility.

He was a man making up for lost time.

“I’m just trying to get right again,” Phillips said. “Trying to jell, since I did miss [so much] of the season.”

Phillips is on the fast track to being BYU’s top receiver next season. After a rash of departures — including Chase Roberts, Parker Kingston and Cody Hagen — Phillips is all of a sudden the most tenured player in the room.

But most tenured doesn’t exactly mean most experienced. Phillips, once viewed as a potential star, has struggled with injuries most of his career. He’s never tallied more than 211 yards in a single season and missed 12 weeks last year with a collarbone fracture.

But he showed a glimmer of hope last December when he had four catches for over 50 yards in Orlando. Now fully healthy, he’s starting the campaign to be the Cougars’ top weapon in 2026.

“I feel like I’m ready. I’m going into year four now,” he said. “I learned a lot from Chase through the years. I learned a lot from Darius [Lassiter] and Keelan [Marion].”

On paper, Phillips is the obvious choice to be a leading receiver. He’s 6-foot-6 with tremendous speed. He broke onto the scene in 2024, outracing a corner and getting under a 57-yard bomb from former quarterback Jake Retzlaff for a touchdown. Plays like that were so tantalizing for a fan base desperate for another receiving star like Puka Nacua.

But since then, he’s never stayed on the field. That season, he went seven games without recording a catch. In 2025, he went down in the second week of the season against Stanford and didn’t come back until November.

When he did return, he was a shell of himself. He dropped passes and shied away from contact.

“I’m not going to lie, my confidence had kind of gone down,” he said. “Coming out and dropping balls. Just not playing after a while and everything. The collarbone had me scared of contact. Or not scared, but just worrying about it.”

Offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick kept giving him chances. Finally, it paid off in the bowl game.

“I think in that bowl game we saw the Jojo we were expecting,” Roderick said. “I mentioned before how tough that injury was last year that he dealt with. Without getting into too much detail, it was a pretty gnarly injury. When he did play again, it was one of those deals that really sets you back with your confidence to just cut it loose. It affects you catching the ball, affects you blocking, taking hits. It just took him some time.”

But will that bowl game translate to 2026?

BYU needs it to happen. It lost most of its receiver production from last year and has a bevy of young players in the room.

Roderick signed Oregon transfer Kyler Kasper, but he hasn’t produced much in college. BYU also has Tei Nacua, Tiger Bachmeier and Legend Glasker. But none have ever had big roles.

It means Phillips is now the leader, like it or not.

“I see some things developing. Me, Kyler, Tei, Legend is starting to turn some heads. I really like Legend. Nobody is receiver one, I would say,” Phillips said.

This spring, Roderick closely watched Phillips to monitor his progress. He wanted to see the receiver that was the aggressor, could handle contact and be a reliable target.

“I saw a big step forward in Jojo,” Roderick assessed. “He picked up where he left off in that bowl game.”

BYU certainly needs that to be true.