Ohio State’s Harrison Jr. can be better in 2023 by chasing these elite standards
Marvin Harrison Jr. is the walking, talking ideal that Ohio State football’s eight first- and second-year receivers try to live up to every day.
So what ideal is the man widely considered college football’s best receiver — maybe its best player, period — chasing?
He cannot be more of an All-American than he was last season, when he became the Buckeyes’ first unanimously honored receiver in 25 years. He can win the Biletnikoff Award as the nation’s top receiver, but he already put up a season worthy of that trophy.
There’s another trophy — the one they make you come to New York City to accept on ESPN — but receivers typically need to be transcendent to have any shot at Heisman-level immortality.
Yet that is the stratosphere toward which expectations of Harrison are headed. By recalibrating, offensive coordinator and receivers coach Brian Hartline can honestly say yes when asked if Harrison can be better in his third season.
The scale used last year to measure him against the other best receivers in college football? That was tossed out. Hartline said the new scale measures Harrison against his Hall of Fame father, or current NFL stars Davante Adams and Justin Jefferson.
The chase he’s on, he’s nowhere near where he wants to be,” Hartline said. “In his mind, he doesn’t know what everybody’s celebrating. So you guys are celebrating, but he’s not. He’s still on that same chase.”
So how did the players Harrison is chasing perform as they closed their college careers? Adams’ career at Fresno State pre-dated Pro Football Focus’ college metrics. But we use that tool to measure Harrison against the other top college receivers of the past five years: LSU’s Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase, Oklahoma’s CeeDee Lamb, USC’s Drake London and Alabama’s DeVonta Smith — who did lock up that rare Heisman-worthy receiving season.
Pulling away
The most common answer when any star athlete is asked where they can still improve is “everything.” Give Harrison credit for divulging an actual area of focus.
“One thing in particular that I’m kind of focused on is just making plays after the catch,” Harrison said. “Trying to turn 5-yard catches into 20, or 20-yard catches into 60. That’s one thing I’m conscious about, just going into next year and practicing for that.”
The numbers agree that yards after the catch is one area where Harrison’s 2022 fell short of an elite standard. His 4.2 yards after the catch per reception ranked 87th nationally.
Some of his predecessors, though, made noticeable jumps in their final seasons. Jefferson improved from 4.6 YAC/reception in 2018 to 6.4 in 2019. Ja’Marr Chase, Jefferson’s LSU teammate. leaped from 2.4 in 2018 with a mortal Joe Burrow to 7.8 in 2019 with post-enlightenment Burrow. Oklahoma’s CeeDee Lamb rocketed from an already great 7.4 in 2018 to a crazy 11.0 in 2019.
Harrison’s 3.18 yards per route run falls more in line with those other stars. Of those five other receivers, only Smith posted a better YRR in his next-to-last season. All five then went on to post career bests in that metric in their final season.
Harrison already plays efficiently. Now he can work on whittling away the splinters.
Old reliable
Hartline came with a list of potential areas for improvement, too: Carrying more speed through breaks, stopping cleaner and faster, making every contested catch. Plenty of items on there to keep the Monarc machine humming in the Woody Hayes Athletic Complex.
Harrison started wearing out OSU’s pitching machine long before he became a brand ambassador for the company. As a result, he turned in one number that rivaled everyone on this list.
PFF credited him with three drops on 118 targets for a drop rate of 3.8%. Smith beat that all three seasons. London did not drop a pass in his second season, 2020. All of these other greats posted seasons ranging from 4.6% to 14.8%.
Based on precedent, there is no reason to assume Harrison will back off on Monarc reps this summer.
“There’s always an ability to grow,” Hartline said. “It’s a little harder to find the inches — and some people are looking for feet of growth. He’s looking for inches, but they’re still there. He knows that and we’ve had that conversation.”
Moving around
Harrison lined up wide on 86.3% of his snaps in 2022, per PFF. It certainly makes sense to predominantly keep his 6-4 frame outside at the ‘X.’*
In most cases, though, the receivers on this list lined up with more variety in their final season. Lamb and Smith both played over 30% of their snaps lined up somewhere other than wide. Chase’s distribution dropped from 94.3% wide in 2018 to 81.2%.
This one is out of Harrison’s control. Generally, though, teams move receivers around either to create matchup problems or prevent defenses from easily keying on them.
Ohio State has incentive to do both with Harrison in 2023, though again, his physical stature fits less naturally in the slot or out of the backfield.
“We’re moving him around today,” Day said after the first spring practice. “Did a bunch of things with him. We want him to grow as well.
“Everybody kind of comes in the spring with a different plan of what they want to get done, and we don’t want to just be the same old stuff. So we’re going to try to build his tools and his package.”