Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson were teammates for one more night on Thursday in Las Vegas at the NFL draft.
Dressed in suits and sunglasses that could have had them mistaken for the stars of a Miami Vice reboot, Olave and Wilson traversed the red carpet together before Thursday night’s first round. Stealing a page out of the playbook of fellow former Ohio State wide receivers Parris Campbell, Johnnie Dixon and Terry McLaurin, who often did their interviews together during media availabilities at OSU, Wilson and Olave did joint interviews on the red carpet with both ESPN and NFL Network, in which they said going through the draft process together made it more enjoyable.
“I feel comfortable,” Wilson said during their interview with ESPN. “I look behind me and Chris is walking, going through the same thing as me. So it's just such a blessing and we're happy to be doing it together.”
Fittingly, their NFL dreams officially came true within 10 minutes of one another.
After Wilson was selected by the New York Jets with the No. 10 overall pick in Thursday night’s first round, the New Orleans Saints traded up to the very next pick to select Olave with the 11th overall selection, allowing the two former Buckeyes to celebrate being drafted together.
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“Garrett was right next to my little area (in the green room), so right when Garrett got drafted, I’m over there with him trying to congratulate him, and then I got a call right away from New Orleans right after he got drafted,” Olave said during a post-draft interview with Saints reporters.
While Wilson got the bragging rights of going one pick before his former teammate, neither of them looked at it that way. After working hard together for the past three years at Ohio State, both of them were simply happy to see each other’s success.
“There’s no competition between us. We all put the work in,” Olave said during their NFL Network red carpet interview. “People try to compare us and stuff, but that's not us at all. We just try to push each other and make each other better. I wish the best for him at the end of the day.”
Making the moment even more special, another one of their former Ohio State teammates – Jameson Williams, who finished his college career at Alabama after two years with the Buckeyes – was the very next pick after them when the Detroit Lions traded up to draft him at No. 12 overall. And they were just as happy to see him get selected, too, even though he chose to leave the Buckeyes for the Crimson Tide.
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“To hear my name and have such a great moment and right after hearing Chris and know his dream’s coming true and then Jamo, it was super awesome,” Wilson said in his post-draft press conference. “Those are two of my best friends.”
Olave said he wouldn’t have believed it if he had been told three years ago that he, Wilson and Williams would all be selected in the top 12 picks of the NFL draft, but he believes the way they pushed each other at Ohio State helped them all get to this point.
“We never thought this would happen,” Olave said. “But we’re just competitors, man. We just want to be the best, all three of us. So I can’t wait to see what they do in the league, and I hope the best for them.”
Williams said in his post-draft call with Detroit Lions reporters that he, Olave and Wilson “competed with each other and got each other better over the years that we were together.”
“We always knew we had the talent,” Williams said. “We always competed every day.”
On a night that was effectively an infomercial for how Brian Hartline develops wide receivers at Ohio State, Olave said the competitiveness between the receivers in that room was one of the biggest things that prepared him for the NFL – not only with Williams and Wilson, but also with the receivers who are still Ohio State that could be the Buckeyes’ next first-round pass-catchers.
“It’s a competitive environment, especially in that receiver room,” Olave said. “We’ve got so many guys. We got Jaxon (Smith-Njigba) next year and Marvin Harrison in the room, and we’ve got so many younger guys that’s gonna make that jump. So at the end of the day, we just make each other better and we wish the best for each other, so that’s all you can hope for.”
Olave will still have another wide receiver from Ohio State to compete with as he moves south to New Orleans, where he will now team up with fellow Buckeye alumnus Michael Thomas in the Saints’ receiving corps. Olave expects he and Thomas to push each other the same way he and Wilson did in Columbus.
“I can’t wait to go out there and compete with him,” Olave said. “I’ve heard he’s a huge competitor. Me too. So we’re gonna get the best out of each other and we’re just gonna get better each and every day.”
Wilson was drafted by a team that doesn’t currently have any other Buckeyes. That didn’t dampen what he described as “insane excitement” that he was selected by the Jets, though, and he believes he and Olave will continue to push each other from afar even though they’re playing for different teams now.
“Me and Chris, we go play the game with a whole lot of confidence. And I don't expect that to go anywhere,” Wilson said during the pre-draft interview with NFL Network. “I feel like whenever I come through the door, I'm gonna make an impact, and that's what I want to do, that’s what I plan to do.”
Ohio State coach Ryan Day will continue to be one of their biggest supporters, and he believes the Jets and Saints will be happy for years to come that they chose to draft Wilson and Olave.
“I think both of them are gonna be really good NFL players,” Day said during a pre-draft appearance on ESPN’s College GameDay. “Whoever drafts either of these guys tonight is gonna get a player who’s gonna play for a long time. You look at both of their backgrounds. They've made big plays in big games. I think they both bring a lot to the table.
“I think what Chris does on the perimeter, he's a big-play receiver, his ability to go downfield and make plays, track downfield, he's been really clutch for us. And then Garrett, when you look at just how competitive he is, his catch radius, he's got a huge ceiling.”
