Darren Rizzi was named head coach at Rhode Island in mid December. The former Rutgers assistant planned to install a wide-open passing offense, but was saddled with players recruited to a triple-option attack.

“There weren’t a whole lot of wide receivers on the roster when I got here. That was a desperate need we had to address,” Rizzi said.

Rizzi and his assistants scanned the various recruiting services looking for available wide receiver recruits and discovered Brandon Johnson-Farrell of Odenton. Some quick research revealed that Johnson-Farrell had played in a passing offense at Arundel High and set all sorts of state...