A receiver including an equalizer disposed upstream of a decimator and capable of effectively preventing undesirable interaction between equalization adaptation and the overall timing recovery loop in cases of various data rates. The equalizer operates in a full operation rate even in the case of a lower-than-full data rate, e.g., half or quarter data rate. For input analog signal having 1/M of the full data rate (M>1), M or more Center of Filter (COF) values are determine. Each COF may be derived from a function of a respective set of tap weights and compared with a corresponding nominal COF to obtain a COF offset. The resultant COF offsets are used as indications of clock phase correction caused by equalization adaptation to adjust a set of selected tap weights. The taps selected for adjustment encompass at least M samples to correctly indicate the COF offset associate with one symbol.