Blazing a New Path: Keric Wheatfall Brings Speed, Swagger and Substance to Hamilton

Keric Wheatfall’s first appearance on a CFL field came as a fast-tracked replacement for injured Winnipeg receiver Kenny Lawler.

Now, just a year-and-a-half later, Wheatfall and Lawler have become teammates again, and the two former Blue Bomber receivers will spend a lot of time lining up right beside each other in the bobbing-and-weaving Tiger-Cats offence.

The 26-year-old Wheatfall made 42 catches for 655 yards and five touchdowns in 16 games for the Bombers last year and was the marquee Ticat signing as CFL Free Agency opened at noon Tuesday, with the Cats continuing to mine a promising off-season lode.

He’s got blazing feet, vertical explosiveness and, at 6-1, a large catching radius.

“It’s going to be amazing playing with Kenny,” Wheatfall says. “He’s a great receiver and he taught me a lot of things in our time in Winnipeg. I just love the way he approaches the game and I try to have that same mentality. Watching him do his thing, going out there and playing and practicing hard.

“When I first got to Winnipeg I watched older players take Vet Days, I guess they call them, and I’m looking at Kenny’s face and I can see him thinking, ‘No, I can’t do that, I gotta get out here and work.’ Ever since that day I’ve been, like, ‘his body’s big and his body works.’

“You don’t always see that with a lot of vets and watching him do that burns a lot of fire into you, so I can’t wait to get out there and play with my dog.”

And with his new quarterback. He’s going from catching passes from one guaranteed Hall of Famer in Zach Collaros to snaring them from another in Bo Levi Mitchell.

“I felt like it was best for me,” Wheatfall says of his decision to move east. “Hamilton has something great going right now and I’d love to be a part of that and I can’t wait to get started with the team.”

“First and foremost, who wouldn’t want to play with a quarterback like Bo?

“I spoke with Bo: he called me and the energy was there, the excitement was there. I can’t wait to get out and work with him. We have a lot of ideas and it’s going to be fun.”

He said he also heard immediately from Scott Milanovich, one of coaching’s great quarterback developers on either side of the border, “and I felt the love instantly. As soon as I talked to Orlondo (Steinauer, the Ticats’ president of football operations) and Scott I felt like I was part of the family. I can’t wait to actually go out there and be with people who want you with that love.”

Steinauer and Wheatfall have Fresno State in common.

In 2017, the only year among the last 14 that Steinauer has not been with the Ticats, he was the defensive coordinator for Fresno. He helped orchestrate one of the largest single-season turnarounds in American college history as the Bulldogs went from 1-11 to 10-4.

In 2019, Wheatfall transferred from Blinn College in Brenham, Texas, where he was born, to Fresno State. They struggled his first two years but were 10-3 and won the New Mexico Bowl, in his senior season, when he took advantage of pandemic-generation rules that granted athletes a fifth full year of eligibility. He used that to advance his post-secondary studies.

“Football can’t go on forever, so I want to learn things that will help afterward,” he said. “And staying that extra year was part of that. I’m leaning toward training, coaching, motivational speaking.”

Wheatfall—he wants you to call him ‘Wheat’—credits his exposure to football with re-directing his life path when he was in his early teens. Growing up in the middle of five brothers, three older, two younger, helped him develop as an athlete, “because it was always competitive in that house. Who’d be the first one to get in a game?  The first one to get in the shower? We were always competing. One of my brothers played as a defensive back at Texas A&M, Kingsville. We never got to play against each other in college, so I’m kind of mad about that but we had lots of one-on-ones growing up.”

As a high school freshman and junior Wheatfall started having academic issues, “and your first two years of high school are really the most important. I was hanging out with the wrong people, that kind of thing. I wanted to play Division 1 college football so I got my mind right in junior and senior years and started making all A’s and B’s but by then it was too late, so I went to Blinn.”

He spent two years at Blinn—a historically strong program where Argo pivot Michael Bishop had won a title and where NFL quarterback Cam Newton would later play—and scored six touchdowns in his second season. He attracted attention from several Division 1 schools after being ranked the No. 17 junior college receiver in the country. He chose Fresno State, had good years there, was signed by the Philadelphia Eagles in 2022 but was cut on the final week of training camp, spent time in the USFL then went to Winnipeg in 2024. He was injured partway through his rookie season but rebounded impressively last year.

In the Ticats’ emotional 32-21 mid-September victory over the Bombers on Team Ted Night he took a short third-down pass from Chris Streveler on the wide—and wide-open—side and sped 42 unchallenged yards into the end zone to tie the game at 7-7.

That play, among several others, showcased his significant speed. He was a star 100-and-200 metre sprinter at Cypress Ranch High School in Houston where he helped the football team to an 11-1 record in his final season.

“I can run a bit,” he laughs. “But I was more of a long jumper and a triple jumper. And that definitely does help with the vertical thing and it also helps with explosiveness. That’s the fun part about triple jump, you have to use both feet for elevation. There’s a lot of ankle mobility involved as well and you need that as a receiver.”

He’s happy to be fleet of foot but senses that sometimes that can overshadow his ability to create separation from coverage with intelligent pass routes and by reading and playing off defenders’ tendencies.

“You’re looking at a resilient, confident player who works really hard,” he says, when asked to summarize his game. “And lets his work speaks for itself.”