Tag: Ohio State Buckeyes

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State coach Ryan Day spoke definitively earlier this month about where he believes Buckeyes wide receiver Jeremiah Smith ranks nationally.

“I don’t think it’s even close that Jeremiah Smith is the best offensive player in college football,” Day said then. “If it’s close, I’d like to know who it is.”

Day appeared to soften his stance a couple of weeks later to make room for one more Ohio State receiver after Carnell Tate scored two touchdowns in the top-ranked Buckeyes’ 34-0 victory over Wisconsin, including a spectacular 33-yard grab between two defenders in which he hung onto the ball despite losing his helmet while landing.

“He is playing himself to be a first-rounder and All-American,” Day said after that game. “He’s just a different style of player than Jeremiah but just as dangerous and just as good.”

It’s not unusual for Ohio State to have multiple future NFL receivers on its roster. Five Ohio State receivers have been selected in the first round of the last four drafts: Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Marvin Harrison Jr. and Emeka Egbuka.

What’s notable this year is how the depth of receiving talent in the Big Ten isn’t limited to the Buckeyes.

Seven of the top 19 Bowl Subdivision players in yards receiving per game are from the Big Ten. The Southeastern Conference, Atlantic Coast Conference and Big 12 each have only two receivers on that list.

Smith, generally regarded as the best receiver in college football, isn’t draft eligible yet as a sophomore. The Big Ten still has three of the top five and four of the top 10 draft-eligible receivers in the rankings that ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. released earlier this month. Kiper had Southern California’s Makai Lemon first, Tate third, USC’s Ja’Kobi Lane fifth and Washington’s Denzel Boston 10th.

“There’s more NFL talent maybe even in the wide receiver pool in the Big Ten than there is any other position, which I don’t know if you could have ever said that in the last 100 years,” Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell said.

Seven Big Ten players are averaging at least 83.5 yards receiving per game, which would essentially equate to 1,000 yards over a 12-game regular season. As recently as 2017, the Big Ten had only one 1,000-yard receiver.

“The old-school version of what the Big Ten was — just running the football and big, physical guys, and everything down south was about athleticism and speed — I think that everybody’s starting to realize that that’s not the case,” Fickell said. “I’m not saying that there’s more in the Big Ten than there is in the SEC, but I think that what we see and we have seen on a consistent basis is, it’s as good as you get.”

And that’s produced plenty of headaches for defenses trying to stop these guys.

“There’s never a break,” Michigan coach Sherrone Moore said. “If you decide to take a breath, you’re going to lose.”

The easy explanation for this increase in receiving talent across the Big Ten is the addition of Oregon, USC, Washington and UCLA to the conference. USC leads the nation and Washington ranks 26th in passing yards per game. Oregon annually has one of the nation’s most dynamic offenses.

Conference expansion resulted in an end to divisional play. Big Ten Network analyst Jake Butt, who played tight end at Michigan from 2013-16, says that also has contributed to the change in style.

“When it was the East and the West, you think about the teams that consistently would win the West,” Butt said. “It was Iowa. It was Wisconsin. What that incentivized programs to do was win by playing great defense, running the football, playing ball control, winning on special teams.”

Butt said those old West Division schools have needed to diversify to adapt to the arrival of the former Pac-12 schools plus the improved coaching across the league.

“You used to be able to say you could have a successful season in the Big Ten West, and you would never need to throw the ball,” Butt said. “You could have a successful season just by running the ball. Now because of the competition conference-wide, all these teams have been forced to adapt.”

That adaptation takes time.

Of the seven Big Ten receivers on pace for 1,000-yard seasons, the only one from a former West Division school is Illinois’ Hank Beatty (averaging 86.3 yards per game). The others are Lemon (108.3), Rutgers teammates KJ Duff (95.1) and Ian Strong (90.5), Smith (86.0), Tate (83.9) and Boston (83.5).

One noteworthy aspect of this year’s surge in receiving depth is the number of Big Ten schools with multiple productive wideouts. Rutgers has Duff and Strong. USC’s Lemon and Lane are both likely early-round draft picks. No. 2 Indiana’s Elijah Sarratt has 10 touchdown catches to lead all FBS players, while teammate Omar Cooper Jr. has seven.

“It allows us to go out there and play more free, knowing you can’t double-team one person because we’ve got more weapons than you can hold,” Cooper said.

But all these teams ultimately are playing catch-up to Ohio State, which could make a case it has the two best receivers in all of college football.

Smith and Tate are so good that they’ve boosted the Heisman Trophy chances of Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin, who has capitalized on the opportunity to throw to these future NFL receivers.

“We’ve got two guys who, when it’s one-on-one and you’re looking both sides, I have full confidence that both these guys are going to go score a touchdown for us,” Sayin said.

The depth of receiving talent across the Big Ten has plenty of its quarterbacks feeling confident each Saturday.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Carnell Tate is an overnight sensation — three years in the making — for top-ranked Ohio State.

The Chicago native arrived in Columbus in January 2023 after finishing high school at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida.

He was a five-star receiver prospect, per 247Sports, but what else is new?

Brian Hartline has made a habit of signing those since he became the full-time receivers coach at his alma mater in 2019.

That means one typically does not just show up at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center and expect to start, but Hartline has shown a willingness to reward those who put in the work with playing time, no matter their age.

Tate impressed the coaching staff enough to be part of the rotation as a true freshman, and he caught 18 passes for 264 yards and a touchdown in 2023, while Emeka Egbuka and Marvin Harrison Jr. grabbed most of the headlines.

When Harrison entered the 2024 NFL Draft, Tate looked to be next in line to become a star receiver for the Buckeyes. But, Jeremiah Smith bucked the aforementioned trend and became an instant starter as a true freshman last fall opposite Egbuka.

While Smith became the go-to receiver for the Buckeyes in the College Football Playoff, Tate still made the most of his opportunities, catching 52 passes for 733 yards and four touchdowns as the third receiver for the national champions.

Although Egbuka has moved on to the NFL, where he has made a big impact with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Smith is still grabbing more headlines and attention from defenses trying to stop Ohio State.

They can’t ignore Tate anymore, though.

Just ask Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck, who watched Tate torch his defense for a career-high 183 yards on nine catches Oct. 4.

“They’re really big, really powerful, and then they force you to put more people in the box and they throw it over the top with two first-round draft picks,” Fleck said after his Golden Gophers lost 42-3 at Ohio Stadium. “I mean, you’re picking your poison.”

A week later, Illinois did not make the same mistake as Minnesota. The Fighting Illini played back in soft zones to try to contain both Smith and Tate, a plan that prevented big plays, but lost much of its chance to work when the Fighting Illini offense committed three turnovers in their own territory.

If catching only four passes for 41 yards bothered Tate after his breakout game, he didn’t show it this week.

“It’s football. You’re gonna have your big games, you’re gonna have your bad games,” Tate said Wednesday. “You’ve gotta stay levelheaded. Everyone’s due for a big game, and that was my big game. So I’m due for another one, so I’ve gotta keep going.”

Day has called Smith the best offensive player in college football, but he is quick to praise Tate for all he does, even if passes aren’t coming his way.

“Carnell has done a lot of the dirty work that’s allowed some of the other guys on offense to have success, and then vice versa,” Day said last week. “When Jeremiah dictates coverage, or as a decoy and a play to open up something for Carnell, that’s winning football. And that’s going to be the key moving forward.”

Tate, who is seventh in the Big Ten with 476 receiving yards, is on board with that.

“At the end of the day, you’ve gotta go out there and play,” said Tate, who is two catches away from 100 for his career and needs 27 receiving yards to reach 1,500. “You can’t put bad things on film. You can’t let the game affect you emotionally, and then if the ball’s not coming your way, that’s a conversation you have after the game or whatever time that may be. Sometimes it’s like that. Games don’t always come to you.”