Marvin Harrison Jr. had arguably the best season ever for an Ohio State wide receiver last season when he caught 77 passes for 1,263 yards and 14 touchdowns and became OSU’s first-ever unanimous All-American wide receiver.
According to Harrison, true freshman wide receiver Carnell Tate is already further along in his development than Harrison was going into that historic season last year.
“Carnell's gonna be special, man. I think Carnell's probably at a better point right now than I was going into my sophomore year,” Harrison said last week. “He's amazing. He handles his business. He's always in the right spot, catches the ball and runs great routes. So I'm excited to really see what his career looks like. I think he'll be one of the best receivers to ever come through Ohio State.”
That’s extremely high praise coming from the best wide receiver in college football, and Harrison is far from alone in talking up Tate this preseason. When Ryan Day was asked last week about the most pleasant surprises of preseason camp, he went out of his way to compliment Tate for how well the freshman receiver has performed.
“To go through what he's been through this month, and then just to continue to show up every day and play the way he's playing, you're talking about someone who not only has talent but has maturity at a high level,” Day said. “I've been very impressed with Carnell.”
Tate made an immediate impression on his Ohio State coaches and teammates this spring when he lost his black stripe in only five practices, the fastest a midyear-enrollee freshman has ever had his black stripe removed. He’s only continued to build on that this pre,season even though he suffered a heartbreaking loss less than three weeks before the start of camp when his mother was killed in a drive-by shooting in Chicago.
Both Day and Brian Hartline, who began recruiting Tate when he was just a sophomore in high school, say they’ve been impressed by how maturely Tate has handled everything that’s come his way both on and off the field in his first eight months as a Buckeye.
“As a football player, he is very mature. And when you give that mature tag to a football player, it says a lot,” Hartline said. “It’s hard to put into words, and I can try. But his ability to take meetings to the field, his ability to correct mistakes in one try, his ability to hold himself accountable to mistakes, for me to ask him questions about why he did something and for him to give me the answers back, shows a lot of intentional work, which is very, very important. And that's usually an older guy kind of thing. Just really proud of him.
“And he's had a lot of adversity, and that's well-documented, and to build relationships with these young men since they were sophomores, and to see all the things they've gone through and done, you can't put it into words and I’m trying. But very proud of him.”
His peers, including Ohio State’s top two receivers, Harrison and Emeka Egbuka, have been equally impressed by how Tate has handled his business as a freshman.
“He doesn't have too many missed assignments. He does everything right, catches the ball, gets open. He just does what you need him to time and time again,” Egbuka said. “He's really consistent with it. And he's handled coming into a new offense, to a higher level of play with grace. And he did it at a more efficient level than even I thought I did. I think Marv and I, we did a pretty good job of taking accountability of learning the playbook, but Carnell’s just done it at such a high level. And he's really smart.”
Added Harrison: “His future’s very bright, and just how he's handled his situation on and off the field, I can't speak to how hard that must be for him.”
“Carnell's gonna be special, man. I think Carnell's probably at a better point right now than I was going into my sophomore year.”– Marvin Harrison Jr. on Carnell Tate
As impressive as Tate was this spring, the prevailing thought for most of this offseason has been that Tate would see occasional playing time this season before stepping into a starting role as a sophomore. That was the path Harrison and Egbuka took to where they are now, and the presumption all offseason has been that Julian Fleming will be Ohio State’s third starting receiver while Xavier Johnson will be the first receiver off the bench.
The way Hartline talked about Tate last week, however, suggested the Buckeyes may have bigger plans for the 6-foot-2, 191-pound newcomer this year.
“He's definitely putting himself in position to play very, very meaningful reps,” Hartline said. “And that's not just me, that's the room agreement. That wasn't (only) my choice. Peers know. If I have a question, I go ask the guys and they let me know. And we're all on the same page.”
It would still come as a surprise if Fleming isn’t Ohio State’s third starting receiver in the Buckeyes’ season opener against Indiana on Saturday, but it should no longer come as any surprise if Tate ends up seeing snaps with the first-team offense right away.
Should Tate end up establishing himself as a regular in this year’s receiver rotation or even steal a starting job by the end of the year, it wouldn’t be the first time a freshman receiver made a significant impact for the Buckeyes since Hartline became Ohio State’s wide receivers coach. Chris Olave became a breakout star by the end of his freshman year in 2018, famously catching two touchdown passes in a win over Michigan. Garrett Wilson was a regular in the receiver rotation throughout his freshman year, catching 30 passes for 432 yards and five touchdowns in 2019. Harrison and Egbuka concluded their freshman years by starting in the Rose Bowl – a game in which Harrison caught three touchdown passes – after Olave and Wilson opted out to begin preparing for their NFL careers.
When asked if Tate was ahead of where Egbuka and Harrison were as freshmen, Hartline said he didn’t want to compare Tate to anyone else. But Tate appears to have kicked the door wide open to potentially play as much if not more than they did as first-year Buckeyes.
“I don't want to compare people to people, I really don't,” Hartline said. “Those are some great comparisons now, so nothing against anything. But Carnell’s his own man. He's gone about it his own way. And it's been very, very impressive.”
