Booth joins the IU football family

Dominique Booth leaned back in his chair in Memorial Stadium’s North End Zone complex, where IU football introduced its six mid-year enrollees to the media Thursday.

Booth had committed to IU on ESPN.com only two days earlier. He credited the “family-oriented” culture of the Hoosiers as one of the main reasons why he chose to come to Bloomington.
 
Booth laughed as he recounted a memory from his childhood involving IU freshman defensive end David Kenney. The two players grew up together in Pike Township, northwest of Indianapolis.
 
“He’s definitely a character,” Booth said. “He used to stay at my house all the time.”
 
The wide receiver described a time when Kenney opened a box of frozen waffles and put all of them in the oven. Booth said Kenney proceeded to dump a bucket of maple syrup on the waffles and then walk around the Booth house, offering waffles to anyone he could find.
 
“I have a lot of good stories with him,” Booth said. “He’s just a great guy to be around.”
 
The story is seemingly inconsequential but it speaks to the relationships Booth had fostered with IU players and in some cases, the friendships were kindled long before playing football for the Hoosiers was even on the wide receiver’s radar.
 
In one case, Booth may be closer to being considered a family member of one of his teammates rather than a friend.
 
IU junior wide receiver Shane Wynn’s aunt is Booth’s godmother.
 
“It’s a lot of connections here obviously,” he said.
 
During ESPN.com’s live broadcast of Booth’s commitment, the Indianapolis native said he figured out what was truly important to him during the recruiting process.
 
In Booth’s recruitment, waffles — or rather, the relationships that are represented by Kenney’s waffles and the other memories he shares with his IU teammates — is one area in which the college football powerhouses simply couldn’t compete with the Hoosiers.

Ultimately, it was the Hoosiers’ offense, the University itself and the people at IU that attracted him, Booth said after committing to IU.
 
He originally committed to the University of Tennessee in July before reopening his recruitment in December.
 
“It’s great,” Booth said of his recruitment coming to an end. “No more stressing about schools that want me.”
 
Booth had scholarship offers from more than half of the teams in the Southeastern Conference and almost one-third of the teams in the final AP Top 25 Poll for the 2013 season.
 
Booth said the success of the other schools that recruited him doesn’t bother him. In fact, the 6-foot, 200-pound receiver initially chose the Volunteers instead of Alabama and Florida State last summer.
 
“That’s not what I look at,” he said. “I’m a future-oriented type of guy, I’m not scared to do what’s never been done before. I don’t like to fall in line, I like to create a new path so that’s what I want to do here.”
 
Despite being well-versed with the recruiting process for high school athletes, Booth said he was never very familiar with college, with one exception.  
 
IU was the only university that he knew much about when he was growing up.
 
Booth also said the short distance between Bloomington and Indianapolis will allow his family and friends to attend IU’s home games. If he needs to go home, he can be in Indianapolis in roughly an hour.
 
“It’s a good situation," he said.

IU Coach Kevin Wilson said IU was “very lucky” when Booth reopened his recruitment because the team is in need of receivers. Senior wide receivers Kofi Hughes and Duwyce Wilson, along with senior tight end Ted Bolser, finished their college football careers last fall.

“It just kind of snowballed and fell our way,” Wilson said.
 
Booth’s chances of contributing to the Hoosier offense next season improved when former IU wide receiver Cody Latimer declared for the 2014 NFL Draft on Jan. 5.
 
In total, IU lost four of its top six receivers from last season.
 
Booth sees himself filling part of the void at outside receiver for the Hoosiers next season. However, he doesn’t take potential playing time for granted.

“Even if those guys still were here, you still got to work to get your spot so that’s what I plan on doing — working to get my spot,” he said.
 
Booth is confident in his technical skills, such as beating man coverage and blocking.

He said playing against man coverage is when wide receivers get to show what they can really do on offense.
 
“It’s the perfect opportunity right there,” he said. “(You) just know you’re about to kill, basically.”
 
Booth said his best performance in high school was against Ben Davis (Ind.) High School last fall and that the Giants only play man coverage on defense.
 
The future Hoosier wide receiver had three touchdowns, repeatedly burning Ben Davis’ defensive backs due to their refusal to change their defensive scheme. Eventually, the Giants switched to a cover three defense because they had to try to find an answer for Booth.
 
Granted, he will now have to face the likes of Michigan State, Wisconsin and Ohio State in college, but he has a positive outlook on facing man coverage at the next level.
 
Booth said it is the type of defense he wants to face as a wide receiver.
 
While IU’s prolific passing attack allows for receivers to have big games catching the ball, the Hoosier wide receivers must also be able to block downfield.
 
“I’m pretty good at blocking,” he said. “I take pride in that. (When) we made new goals for our team at Pike, I said, ‘Man, one of our goals is going to be for (the) offense (to have) eight pancakes a game.’”
 
In football, a pancake is when an offensive player delivers a block on a defensive player that sends the defender to the ground.
 
Booth made a highlight tape in high school called “Smack Cam,” which only consists of plays where he pancakes defenders.
 
“It’s fun to me,” he said. “You don’t get the chance to hit on offense. You (are) supposed to score, you’re not supposed to pancake people as a receiver.”
 
Booth, who is ranked the No. 232 prospect in the 2014 recruiting class by ESPN, joins an IU team that he describes as being “on the way up.”

He cited the team’s passing offense the past two seasons as evidence that the program is trending upward. In terms of the Hoosiers’ young defense, the wide receiver said that it can only improve.
 
“In four years I see it being a top of the Big Ten team,” Booth said. “I really do.”

Follow football reporter Andy Wittry on Twitter @AndyWittry