NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- As the overmatched UMass Minutemen prepared for a trip to Bill Snyder Stadium and what would be a 37-7 loss to Kansas State in 2013, receiver Tajae Sharpe and his position coach noticed something a previous opponent of the Wildcats had employed.

"We saw someone start disguising the receivers alignment by putting him in the backfield and motioning him out," said Allen Suber, who's now at Alabama State. "I think at that time, Tajae really started to learn and develop the thought process for matchups and getting himself in better positions and lined up against backers or strong safeties.

"Which then intrigued him as a young player, not only to learn his route but to learn the concepts and where he fit and how we could get him in better matchups. He would come in and sit down and really, from that week on, go through all the pass concepts we had against their personnel. And he just understood it. He could sit down and talk you through it."

Three years removed from that 1-11 UMass season and his nine-catch, 98-yard game against Kansas State, Sharpe will line up as a starting wide receiver for the Tennessee Titans Sunday at Nissan Stadium.

In roughly four months of work, he's shown the Titans the same thing he showed Suber: an ability to understand concepts and how he fits into them.

Quarterback Marcus Mariota is sure to lean on last year's leading target, tight end Delanie Walker. But the 2014 Heisman Trophy winner has quickly bonded with Sharpe, a player he trusts to be in the right place and hold onto the ball.

Tajae Sharpe already has a head of steam heading into the season, his first in the NFL after being drafted by the Titans in the fifth round. Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images

Sharpe was a fifth-round draft choice by new Titans general manager Jon Robinson. Robinson inherited a receiver-needy roster but made five picks before getting to the position, using the 140th choice on a weapon who played on a struggling team in college but led the nation in receptions as a senior with 111.

When the Titans spent time with Sharpe ahead of the draft, receivers coach Bob Bratkowski installed some concepts with him. On the field, Sharpe executed them pretty much flawlessly, Robinson recalled.

"It's his intelligence level, his ability to process information quickly and his physical skill set," Robinson said of the 6-foot-2, 194-pound rookie. "... He's wiry. He's just got really good body control. He can sink his weight, drop his weight in and out of his breaks very efficiently."

After the Titans landed Sharpe, Robinson figured he'd found a rookie role player. But Sharpe has earned a role far more important than that, helped by a stark contrast with some guys who were already on the team. Justin Hunter and Dorial Green-Beckham didn't have a work ethic similar to Sharpe's. While more impressive physically, they didn't feel nearly the same gravitational pull of the position's detail and nuance.

Green-Beckham was traded on Aug. 16. Hunter was cut Sept. 3.

The Titans' longstanding fascination with fantastically athletic but unrefined wideouts went with them. Before he's even played a meaningful down, Sharpe has come to symbolize the kind of guy these Titans want.

"Tajae doesn't look like a rookie, he looks like a guy that's been around in this league for a little while," said Titans receiver Andre Johnson, who has stats that rate among those of the all-time great receivers. "The way he runs routes, he's faster than he looks. He makes plays. I think this year will be pretty big for him."

Johnson said if he knew nothing of Sharpe and watched him work, he'd have guessed he as a second- or third-year player.

Johnson was drafted by the Texans third overall out of Miami in 2003. Thirteen years later and 137 picks further down in the draft, Sharpe came to Tennessee.

"I wasn't really known for running routes coming in," Johnson said. "I think that's something I developed over the course of my career. As far as running routes, he's better than I was coming in.

"He asks a lot of questions when he doesn't understand something or he's curious about something. That's a good thing, and a lot of times it's what you look for in a rookie."

Sharpe speaks reverently about Johnson, and said compliments from him are humbling. The rookie also rates Suber, who was on the Texans practice squad during Johnson's time there, as a big influence in shaping him.

"The biggest thing was that he was a ball of clay," Suber said. "He just wanted to be coached. ... He fell in love with the preparation process."

When Sharpe was coming out of Piscataway (N.J.) High School, Suber rated him as just an average route-runner. Mark Carrier and Tampa Bay Buccaneers receivers coach Richard Mann taught Suber lessons he passed on to Sharpe that helped him evolve.

"Separation technique, the ability to speed cut, the ability to separate," Suber said. "He's not the fastest guy with vertical speed, but he's always going to have separation. He is a master of the separation technique.

"It's understanding leverage, it's being able, regardless of whether you are running deep, [to be] always simulating it. He'll tell you, first 5 yards, everything should look the same. Speed and upper-body violence when you are running routes. He can sink his hips at 10 [yards] and maintain the same pad level and be out at 6 yards very, very quickly. He understands cutting off interception angles of defenders."

Since the start of the seven-round draft in 1994, only four receivers selected in the fifth round or later posted seasons with at least 51 catches and 720 receiving yards. The most recent, Stefon Diggs, will be on the field for the Vikings on Sunday during Sharpe’s NFL debut.

Can Sharpe surpass them? He may be in just the right environment to give it a run.

"The game is very slow in his head right now," Suber said. "He's a football player. I think he's going to play a decade plus."