Victor making leap at receiver
Parris Campbell’s prevailing message to fellow Ohio State receiver Binjimen Victor this season has been constant.
“I tell Ben every single day that he’s a special player,” Campbell said. “He has stuff that’s not normal. He’s 6-foot-4, incredible hands, incredible jumping (ability). … But I tell Ben each and every day, ‘If you do this on a consistent basis, you can be one of the best to ever do it.’ He’s making strides. He’s getting better.”
Coach Urban Meyer has seen and said many of the same things, dating to when he and his coaches talked Victor, from Pompano Beach, Florida, into being a late member of the 2016 recruiting class.
Now headed into game seven of 2017 on Saturday night at Nebraska, Meyer is starting to see Victor climb the ladder, so to speak, toward becoming the go-to receiver he has envisioned.
“And it’s amazing to say this, we’re not even scratching the surface of his ability level,” Meyer said. “He’s got so much more left; we haven’t even seen near the ceiling of what he has ability-wise. He’s a great young man who is just working at learning how to work all the time and go all the time.”
That’s the point Campbell, Austin Mack, position coach Zach Smith and others in the receivers’ meeting room have been hammering with the sophomore. Victor’s rising catch of a pass from J.T. Barrett to the post in the win over Maryland last week, or the way Victor outleaped a Rutgers defender for a TD the week before — those should be more the norm.
“I’ve not had many like that,” Meyer said of receivers who can gain positioning and get on the pogo stick. “Obviously Cris Carter years and years and years ago (when Meyer was graduate assistant at OSU in 1986 and ’87). And Mike Thomas was really good at going up and getting the ball. But this guy is (capable), just by sheer size and wingspan, and he’s got great ball skills.”
Victor appreciated the comparisons.
“It’s amazing because those two guys are, like, great and I look up to them, I watch them all the time,” Victor said of Carter and Thomas.
And when it’s time to go get the ball, Victor knows he can climb the ladder.
“That has always been part of my game,” he said Tuesday. “I just wanted the opportunity to do it. Patience, and just do what I have to do to go get the ball at all times.”
He has made 14 catches, averaging 14.1 yards, and four have been for touchdowns, including one each in the past three games. His four catches against Maryland were second to Campbell’s team-leading six, which means quarterback J.T. Barrett — second in the Big Ten in passing yards (252.2 average) and efficiency — has Victor on his radar.
“He’s practicing very well, and he’s taking the things he does in practice into the game, I think if anything, just being really confident,” Barrett said. “I think last year he’d be timid at times, and with that, wouldn’t be open. Now he’s being more confident; even when a guy’s hanging on to him he’s able to go up there, grab the football, snatch it … pluck it out of the air.”