Hyperbole has no place in the Sarratt household, where athletic excellence is an expectation. So Donnie Sarratt was a bit surprised when his middle son, Josh, offered some rare praise for his little brother.
Elijah Sarratt was a freshman, trying to make Colonial Forge’s varsity football team as a wide receiver in the summer of 2017. In preseason practice, the precocious youngster was holding his own with — and sometimes even outdueling — standout senior defensive back Johnnie Walker.
“One thing you’ve got to know about the Sarratt family: We do not give anybody props undeservedly. If anything, we might be considered haters,” Donnie Sarratt said. “But Josh was the first person to notice. He came home one day and said, ‘Pops, Elijah is different.’
“ … I gave him a little bit of the side eye, because I thought [Elijah] was going to play basketball, not football.”
But Josh knew better. Still, while Elijah has made a habit of reeling in nearly every pass that comes his way, it took the rest of the football world a while to catch on to his talents.
Undervalued during the recruiting process, Elijah has taken a circuitous route through several stops to become one of the top receivers in the country.
“He was always smooth playing sports,” Josh Sarratt said. “I played with a lot of guys who got a lot of recognition. You watch them do something special and make it look easy and say, ‘Oh yeah, that guy’s got it.’
“That’s how E was. He would try to do the stuff I did. I told him, ‘You’re 6-2. You don’t need to do this.’ But it helped him, because he’s now a big receiver with finesse.”
Before suffering an injury in a Nov. 1 game at Maryland, Elijah Sarratt was leading the nation with 10 touchdown receptions (a total that has since been surpassed). Still, he and fellow Fredericksburg native Aiden Fisher are two reasons upstart Indiana (10-0) is ranked second in the national polls and pursuing Big Ten and national titles.
“He’s a guy who was maybe underestimated a little bit when he was young,” Hoosiers coach Curt Cignetti said in a video feature released by the school. “He loves ball, and ball is everything to Elijah.”
A tough decision
Growing up as the youngest of Donnie and Kim Sarratt’s three sons, Elijah had little choice but to play ball. His eldest brother Jalen, was a key contributor at North Stafford High School, and Josh was named all-state and The Free Lance-Star’s player of the year at Colonial Forge.
Donnie Sarratt recalled the time when, as young boys, Jalen and Josh jumped off the front steps of their Stafford County townhouse. Elijah, not long removed from learning to walk, insisted on doing the same.
Despite a three-year age difference, he began tagging along with Josh everywhere. “They were like twins,” Donnie Sarratt said.
But while neither Jalen nor Josh made it close to 6 feet, Elijah sprouted to 6-2. He made Colonial Forge’s varsity basketball team as a freshman, and his father admitted that he thought, “he was going to be the next Magic Johnson.”
In fact, it was on the basketball court that Elijah made his first real impression on Eagles football coach John Brown.
“Something happened to one of his teammates, and he got up nose-to-nose with one of the older players on the other team,” Brown said. “He didn’t back down. I knew he was a good football player, but I wasn’t expecting him to carry himself that way at a young age.”
Elijah was a bit “chunky” as a youth, according to his father, but as he matured, he became sleeker and stronger. And the same skill set that made him an outstanding basketball player translated into even greater success on the gridiron.
Brown was most impressed by “his ability to use his size in an athletic way. Sometimes kids are big and slow. But he’s big and really athletic. He would take a screen to the sideline and turn it into a 70-yard touchdown. … He proved you don’t have to look fast to be fast. He uses his body really well.”
Elijah played three years of football for Colonial Forge before making the difficult decision to transfer to Saint Frances Academy in Baltimore for his senior season. The goal was to test himself against top competition and catch the eyes of college recruiters.
“It felt like my heart was torn out of my chest when he left here,” said Brown, “not just because of the player he was, but because of the person he was and our relationship with the family. But I understood, because he wanted to see what he could do nationally. And the rest is history.”
Dukes give little bro a shot
It didn’t happen overnight, though.
Most college prospects gain recruiters’ attention through their “junior tape,” video highlights of their penultimate high school season. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed Elijah’s junior campaign until the spring of 2021 and condensed it to just six games.
So despite playing well at Saint Frances, Elijah got very little attention.
Fortunately, though, a coach at a different St. Francis — a Division I Football Championship Subdivision school in Loretto, Pa. — knew the Fredericksburg area well. Marco Pecora serves as the Red Flash’s offensive coordinator and recruited former Chancellor High School stars E.J. Jenkins and Jason Brown to St. Francis.
“There was very little competition [for Sarratt’s services],” Pecora said. “We thought he was off the board. But he visited us late, we had a scholarship available, and the rest is history.
“The funny thing is, once we got him on the field, we knew 100 percent that Elijah was the best receiver in the country. Our eyes just popped. The first time we went seven-on-seven, it was very evident that his production was so much better than his high school tape. It was crystal clear what he could do.”
Receiver Elijah Sarratt (13), who also spent time at FCS St. Francis University and JMU, has made the third time a charm at Indiana. (Photo By Dani Meersman/Indiana Athletics)
Sarratt proved him right by earning FCS Freshman All-America honors in 2022 by catching 13 touchdown passes — tying a school record set three years earlier by Jenkins, who won a Super Bowl ring with the Philadelphia Eagles last season.
Donnie Saratt believes the perceived recruiting snub lit a fire under Elijah and increased his work ethic.
“In some respects, it did work out well, because Elijah was kind of insulated in Stafford. He was always gonna be Josh’s little brother,” Donnie Sarratt said. “When he got to Saint Francis [Academy], it kind of sharpened his irons, would be a good way to put it. He also went up against some of the top players in the country, and that helped his confidence.”
Suddenly, there was plenty of interest in Elijah. Josh had recently announced his transfer from VMI to James Madison, where he started at safety and punt returner.
Again, Elijah tagged along with his big brother, transferring to JMU. In Harrisonburg, he caught a team-high 82 passes for 1,191 yards and eight touchdowns in his first season of FCS competition.
“A big part of the reason we took Elijah was that I thought so much of Josh,” Cignetti said in the IU video.
When Cignetti accepted the Indiana job, Elijah Sarratt and Fisher were among nine Dukes who followed him west to Bloomington. Sarratt remained productive, catching 53 passes for 957 yards and eight touchdowns in one of the nation’s toughest conferences as a junior. He earned second-team all-Big Ten Conference honors and was named a finalist for the Biletnikoff Award, presented annually to the nation’s top receiver.
Elijah Sarratt (13), pictured here during a game in College Park, Md., followed coach Curt Cignetti from JMU to Indiana, where he has blossomed into one of the nation’s top receivers. (Photo By Dani Meersman/Indiana Athletics)
Fisher, a Riverbend High School graduate, was named a first-team All-American as a linebacker in 2024 by the Football Writers Association of America and ranks third on the Hoosiers this season with 58 tackles despite missing a game.
“Football is football, for me, and if you can play, you can play,” Donnie Sarratt said. “I’ve yet to see him struggle, so to speak.”
Through his first eight games of 2025, Elijah Sarratt posted 45 receptions for 609 yards and a national-best 10 scores, despite the presence of fellow Biletnikoff Award candidate Omar Cooper on the other side.
Counting all three college stops, Sarratt leads all FBS receivers with 39 career touchdown receptions. But his streak of catching a pass in each of his first 46 college games ended when he left early in a 55-10 win over Maryland on Nov. 1 with a hamstring strain. That forced him to miss Indiana’s dramatic 27-24 win over Penn State on Nov. 8, when Cooper made a leaping catch for the go-ahead touchdown in the final seconds.
NFL stock on the rise
What makes Sarratt so effective?
He has prototypical size (6-2, 213 pounds) and speed. But coaches marvel at his ability to separate from defenders — his dad jokingly calls him “Waffle House” because “he’s always open” — and to make contested catches despite being well covered.
“Contested catches, good with the ball in his hands, and he plays much faster in the game than you’d think,” Cignetti said on the IU video. “I don’t know if he’s always separating, but more times than not, he’s coming down with the football.”
Added Pecora, his offensive coordinator at St. Francis: “What makes Elijah so special is his spatial coordination. He’s so coordinated in tight spaces, and I love his ability to catch the ball away from his body.”
If Sarratt can stay healthy, those qualities could help Indiana win its first national football title and might make him the highest-drafted Fredericksburg-area player in history. That distinction currently rests with former Chancellor defensive lineman Yetur Gross-Matos, who was chosen 38th overall in the second round by the Carolina Panthers in 2020 and now plays for the San Francisco 49ers. Spotsylvania running back Steve Atkins (1979 to Green Bay) and Stafford receiver Torrey Smith (2011 to Baltimore) were also second-round picks.
Indiana linebacker Aiden Fisher, a former Riverbend High School standout, could hear his name called in next spring’s NFL Draft. (Photo By Maddi Sponsel/Indiana Athletics)
Fisher is also a strong candidate to be drafted next spring.
Pro Football Focus currently ranks Sarratt 45th and Fisher 381st on its 2026 Draft Big Board.
The website footballscout365.com described Sarratt as “one of the most reliable and polished boundary receivers in the 2026 NFL Draft class. After excelling at three collegiate programs — culminating in a breakout Big Ten season — he enters the draft process with a high floor and a proven production profile.”
Indiana did not make Sarratt or Fisher available for interviews, but Josh talks to his younger brother often and said his focus is firmly on the current season and the surprising Hoosiers’ title possibilities.
“He just sticks to the script,” Josh said. “He doesn’t feed into that too much.”
Said Cignetti: “He’ll go down, when it’s all said and done, as one of the all-timers in terms of loving the game, being a great leader, being highly respected and taking care of business.”
