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Going into the 2021 season, it wasn’t exactly surprising that Ohio State would have a potent offense and that the Buckeyes would boast a couple of the nation’s best receivers. Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson were both legitimate pre-season All-America candidates. But 10 games into 2021, it’s clear that Jaxon Smith-Njigba is equaling, if not surpassing, his talented teammates. And with 3 top targets, Ohio State has a historically great wide receiver group. Best ever? Perhaps.
Consider that coming into the season, OSU has had 5 1,000-yard receiving seasons. Smith-Njigba has already become the 6th Buckeye to reach the mark, and with a pair of regular season games, a likely B1G title game, and potential CFP games remaining, Garrett Wilson (813 yards) and Chris Olave (708 yards) could easily join him. Never have the Buckeyes had a pair of 1,000-yard receivers. But a trio?
It has happened. Five NFL teams (with a longer season, of course) have pulled it off. At the collegiate level, QB Colt Brennan and Hawaii had a trio of 1,000-yard receivers in 2007. Case Keenum and Houston pulled it off in 2009. But those were one-dimensional (gimmick) offenses of teams that benefitted from subpar competition.
Plenty of legitimately great offenses didn’t come close.
- Consider the 2019 LSU passing juggernaut. Pair of 1,000-yard receivers, but the third target? Terrace Marshall with 671 yards.
- 2018 Clemson? A single 1,000-yard receiver who had exactly 1,000 yards. Tee Higgins had 936 yards, but the No. 3 target was Amari Rogers with 575.
Ohio State has been aided by the versatility of all three targets. Any of the three can work over the middle in traffic or extend the defense on the edge. And in any given week, any or all can star.
Olave, with the mildest stats of the trio, had a dozen catches in the close loss to Oregon in Week 2. He’s had 4 100-yard games and 3 games with 2 receiving TDs.
Wilson may be the most consistent of the group. He’s had a 10-catch game, 3 100-yard games, and a pair of multi-TD receiving games.
Smith-Njigba? Well, all he did was set a single-game catch record (15) and bring home the OSU mark for 2nd most receiving yards (240) in a single game in the win over Nebraska. He has 3 other 100-yard receiving games on the season.
But of course, the biggest chance the OSU trio has to make history is in grabbing a national title. Hawaii and Houston weren’t competing on the sport’s biggest stage. LSU and Clemson were offered as alternatives to demonstrate that even a great passing team that does achieve at the sport’s highest level could still fall well shy of this mark.
But a national title? Well, aside from assuring the trio of 5 more games to set the mark (which would drop Wilson’s needed yardage to just under 38 yards per game and Olave’s to under 59 yards per game), it would obviously mean that not only did Smith-Njigba, Wilson, and Olave each have great seasons (again, remember only 5 Buckeyes have EVER hit the 1,000-yard mark in a season), not only did they have those seasons in concert (and OSU has never had a pair of 1,000-yard receivers in a season), but they had them in the successful pursuit of the sport’s top level of greatness.
Three 1,000-yard seasons and a national title? Before the season, it would have been dismissed as wishful thinking. But with every grab, OSU’s receiving trio is zeroing in on history. Appropriately, it’s a historical level that nobody else could catch.
Veteran college writer Joe Cox covers Ohio State and college basketball for Saturday Tradition.