Ohio State receiving trio on historic pace entering 'The Game' at Michigan

By RJ Young
FOX Sports College Football Writer

When No. 6 Michigan hosts No. 4 Ohio State in The Game, the Wolverines will be tasked with stopping the best receiving corps in Buckeyes history.

The winner on Saturday (noon ET on FOX and the FOX Sports App) is not just assured a place in the Big Ten title game but also will likely be one win away from earning a spot in the College Football Playoff.

The trio of Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson and Jaxon Smith-Njigba has fueled an Ohio State attack that is averaging 47.2 points and 371.9 passing yards per game. Heading into the Big House, Smith-Njigba leads the corps with 69 catches for 1,132 yards, but Wilson and Olave aren’t far behind.

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh understands the challenge his secondary will face when lining up on the numbers Saturday in Ann Arbor.

"How good they are, how dynamic?" he asked. "Their route-running ability, their catching ability, their speed to all parts of the field — horizontally, vertically — [are] really outstanding."

Sophomore Smith-Njigba is the youngest of the trio. Olave and Wilson are both draft-eligible.

The Buckeyes haven’t had a receiver drafted in the first round since 2007. That year they had two: Ted Ginn Jr. and Anthony Gonzalez.

If that seems like a while ago, it's because it was. Ginn retired in July after 14 years in the NFL, and Gonzalez is serving his third year in Congress, representing Ohio’s 16th district.

Olave and Wilson could be the first Ohio State receivers selected in the first round in 15 years.

Wilson has caught 60 passes for 939 yards and would probably have more if he hadn’t missed the game against Nebraska. Olave, who has 58 catches for 848 yards this season, eclipsed the school record for receiving touchdowns in a career that had been held by first-team All-American David Boston for more than two decades.

The Buckeyes' offensive identity has been about running the football for the better part of a century. Indeed, the only two-time Heisman Trophy winner in the history of the sport is Ohio State's Archie Griffin, and he was a running back.

While former Buckeyes coach Urban Meyer valued great receiver play, his spread offense was built around running the ball against a numbers advantage that frequently used the quarterback to gain that advantage on the ground.

But since Ryan Day took over in Columbus, the Buckeyes' DNA has been infused with an aggressive aerial attack.

Ohio State fans had become so accustomed to watching their quarterbacks make plays with their feet, rather than their arms, that some complained about how little redshirt freshman C.J. Stroud runs the ball.

"If my job was to run the ball," he said, "I’d be a running back or something. I throw the ball for a living."

Besides, Stroud has true freshman tailback TreVeyon Henderson to tote the rock. Henderson has rushed for more than 1,100 yards in 10 games this season.

Stroud has completed 71% of his passes for 3,468 yards with 36 TDs against just five INTs. He’s the pilot of this Ohio State passing offense, akin to an F-22 Raptor flying the friendly skies of Big Ten pass defenses.

Stroud is a Heisman candidate in large part due to the best wide receiver group the sport has seen since, well, last season, when Alabama boasted Heisman winner DeVonta Smith, Jaylen Waddle and John Metchie.

Based on its recruiting and development, however, Ohio State could argue that its receiver room this season is better than Alabama’s last season.

In 2020, Jameson Williams was the third-best receiver in production and fourth on the depth chart for Ohio State. Then he transferred to Alabama. This season, Williams is the best wideout in Tuscaloosa, with 59 catches for 1,218 yards — a gaudy 20.6 per catch — and 13 TDs. 

There’s an argument that the best receiver on the defending national champion Crimson Tide roster wouldn’t even see the field for most snaps at Ohio State.

Mostly, this speaks to how absurdly good receivers coach Brian Hartline has been at recruiting talent to Columbus. In the past three years, the Buckeyes have signed the No. 2 receiver in the country in 2019 (Wilson), the No. 1 receiver in 2020 (sophomore Julian Fleming) and the No. 1 wideout in 2021 (freshman Emeka Egbuka).

Fleming notched his first career TD catch in the Buckeyes’ 56-7 demolition of Michigan State, and Egbuka has been returning kicks most of the season. Neither has broken into the wideout rotation. In fact, neither has recorded more than seven catches this season because the three men ahead of them have been historically prolific.

Heading into 2021, Ohio State had seen just five receivers post 1,000-yard seasons. This season alone, the Buckeyes could have three.

In fact, Ohio State’s offense has been so good that the Buckeyes could join 2007 Tulsa as the only teams with a 4,000-yard passer, a 1,000-yard rusher and three 1,000-yard receivers before Christmas.

Michigan, however, might play just well enough in pass defense to challenge this Buckeye machine, which is putting up 569 yards per game. The Wolverines are a top-10 pass defense, allowing an average of 178.4 passing yards per contest.

Harbaugh has never beaten Ohio State during his tenure as head coach, and 10-1 or not, Wolverines fans need that to change. (Remember, The Game was canceled in 2020, so Saturday marks the renewal of one of the sport's most historic rivalries.)

Against a Buckeyes offense that has put up 56 or more points in its past two outings — both against top-20 opponents — Harbaugh's Wolverines will have their work cut out for them.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast "The No. 1 Ranked Show with RJ Young." Follow him on Twitter at @RJ_Young, and subscribe to "The RJ Young Show" on YouTube. He is not on a StepMill.