Marvin Harrison Jr. is the Big Ten’s best offensive player for the 2023 season.
The Ohio State wide receiver was named Wednesday as the Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year, becoming just the third wide receiver ever to win the award since it was introduced in 1990.
Michigan’s Desmond Howard (1991) and Braylon Edwards (2004) were the only previous wide receivers to win the award.
“It means a lot,” Harrison said in an interview on Big Ten Network after he was announced as the award winner. “I couldn't do it without my teammates and my coaches helping me along the way. It's a collective effort, not just me out there on the football field, so I couldn’t do it without my teammates.”
Harrison was also named Big Ten Receiver of the Year, becoming just the second player to win that award twice since it was first awarded in 2011. Penn State’s Allen Robinson (2012-13) is the only previous two-time winner of the award.
The Ohio State junior earns the Big Ten’s top offensive honor after a spectacular regular season in which he caught 67 passes for 1,211 yards and 14 touchdowns, leading the Big Ten in receiving yards, receiving touchdowns and yards per catch.
Harrison becomes Ohio State’s sixth straight winner of the Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year award. The last five were all quarterbacks as Dwayne Haskins won it in 2018, Justin Fields won it in 2019 and 2020 and C.J. Stroud won it 2021 and 2022.
“I really just wanted to keep the award at Ohio State,” Harrison said. “I know it started off with Dwayne and Justin winning it twice, and then C.J. won it twice, so I just wanted to do my best to keep the award at Ohio State.”
Harrison, who was also named a finalist for the Biletnikoff Award on Tuesday, became the first receiver in Ohio State history to surpass 1,000 receiving yards in multiple seasons while tying the single-season record (eight) and breaking the career record (15) for 100-yard receiving games. He caught 77 passes for 1,263 yards and 14 touchdowns across 13 games in 2022.
It’s unclear whether Harrison will play in any more games as a Buckeye, as the projected top-five pick in the 2024 NFL draft said after Saturday’s loss to Michigan that he did not know whether he would play in Ohio State’s bowl game if it doesn’t make the College Football Playoff. Either way, the awards he won Wednesday further cemented his status as one of Ohio State’s greatest wide receivers ever.
