Hasise Dubois Grows Into Role As Virginia’s Big-Play Receiver

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Third-and-four at the Duke 14-yard line, and Virginia senior wide receiver Hasise Dubois ran a pattern toward the Cavaliers’ sideline, looking for a big first down.

Dubois knew he had Duke cornerback Leonard Johnson beat as he leaped skyward for the catch. Johnson pushed Dubois, disrupting his ability to catch the ball. Most of the time, it would have resulted in an incomplete pass, and Johnson was called for pass interference.

Still, Dubois, at 6-foot-3, lept higher and snared the ball with a one-handed catch that would have made Odell Beckham envious (see accompanying photo by John Markon).  Game officials weren’t certain if Dubois was inbounds when he caught the ball, so went to the replay camera, where the play was reviewed and overturned. No completion, out of bounds.

“They had to show that one angle where maybe if I wore a size 11 and not a 12, I would have been inbounds,” Dubois said this week. “It was still a highlight in my book.”

It was a memorable snag for sure even if it didn’t count. Still, Virginia was awarded a first down at the 2-yard line on the pass interference call, and three plays later, quarterback Bryce Perkins scored on a straight-ahead plunge to the end zone, first ruled a fumble, reviewed and changed to a touchdown that gave the Cavaliers a 17-0 lead.

Dubois stepped his game up last year with 52 receptions for 578 yards and five touchdowns, second only on the team to record-setting teammate Olamide Zaccheaus, now with the Atlanta Falcons. So far, with five regular season games remaining this season, Dubois has 36 catches for 489 yards and a pair of touchdowns, averaging 13.6 yards per catch.

It’s not really the number of catches the New Jersey native has, but rather the degree of difficulty. He catches pretty much everything he gets his hand on. That, by the way, is by design.

“I feel that every ball I go for, Coach (Marques) Hagans (UVA’s receivers coach) said there should be at least an 80 percent change that I catch it, and 20 percent I don’t,” Dubois said. “I always tell Joe (Reed) and the other receivers that you catch it 95 percent of the time and the other five percent, no one catches. Every time the ball goes in the air I attack it with everything I’ve got.”

The reason he comes down with so many difficult catches is his hands. Dubois said the Cavaliers do plate lifts in the weight room to work on their hand strength, and that the staff believes he has the strongest hands on the team next to defensive back Chris Moore.

It wasn’t always like that for Dubois, who didn’t use to go the extra mile or out of his way to improve. He admitted that he used to be kind of a slacker until Zaccheaus began to influence him.

If you know much about recent UVA football history, then you know that Zaccheaus didn’t exactly push himself the first year or two in the program, but had an awakening and became an example of work ethic to everyone on the team.

“I’m totally different now,” Dubois said. “My first two years I wasn’t ‘all in.’ I wasn’t doing the little things to make me better at my craft. Being with Olamide the last couple years just helped me. Sometimes I didn’t want to do extra work, and [Zaccheaus] was like, ‘You don’t have a choice. You have to keep working.’

“That helped build me to where I am now. I’m now trying to help younger guys do it as well. I’ve matured.”

Bronco Mendenhall has noticed the growth.

“I think first we need to acknowledge that he has improved,” Mendenhall said. “The number of contested catches he’s making is becoming expected. He’s also making critical catches.

“It just seems like at the right time he’s becoming so reliable. But Hasise’s career didn’t start like that. It has been a work in progress.”

The coach said that his receiver is both durable and tough, which he wasn’t before.

Dubois has certainly been a key factor in helping UVA get to 5-2 heading into Saturday’s game at Louisville. With the Cardinals struggling on defense, he could be in for another big day regardless of his shoe size.