Skull Session: Coaches Say Marvin Harrison Jr. is the Best Player in the B1G, Brian Hartline Believes JSN is Still WR1 for the NFL Draft and Ohio State is Recession-Proof

By Chase Brown on December 2, 2022 at 5:00 am
JSN.
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Welcome to the Friday Skull Session. I have a question.

Is this good?

And one more question: Let's have a good Friday, shall we?

 BEST IN THE B1G. C.J. Stroud had a tremendous second season as the starting quarterback for Ohio State and received the Big Ten's George-Graham Offensive Player of the Year award for his efforts, in addition to the Griese-Brees Quarter of the Year honor.

However, according to more than 45 head coaches and coordinators from across the Power-Five conferences in the FBS polled by ESPN's Adam Rittenberg, the conference's best player in 2022 was actually Stroud's teammate, Marvin Harrison Jr.

From Rittenberg's article:

Although Ohio State entered the season with the nation's best receiving corps, top target Jaxon Smith-Njigba injured his hamstring in the opener and has barely played since. Harrison, son of Pro Football Hall of Famer Marvin Harrison Sr., stepped up with 72 receptions for 1,157 yards and 12 touchdowns. He has six 100-yard receiving performances and only two games with fewer than five catches.

"He's unbelievable," a Big Ten coach said. "He may be the best one they've ever had. He's just so big and he catches everything. His ball skills are ridiculous."

A Big Ten defensive coordinator added that Harrison is the league's best player "by far."

Coaches also praised Stroud, but no one impressed them more than Harrison.

Had Harrison won the Big Ten Player of the Year award over Stroud, I'm not sure anyone would have been that up in arms about it. I mean, how many wide receivers do you know that can make catches like these?

To answer the question above, there aren't many. Harrison is probably the only receiver in college football who can make grabs like those look routine. When Harrison's time as a Buckeye ends, we will have to make a rankings list of the best catches of his career and see where they stack up against each other.

We may also have to rank the best receivers in Ohio State history and see where he lands. He's already up there with some of the top dudes in my mind, and he'll have one more year to build on an impressive sophomore season that still has at least one more game to go. If 2022 indicates how good Harrison can be, it will be time to bring out the popcorn in 2023.

 JSN → WR1? When talking about how good Harrison can be for Ohio State next year, my mind drifts to Jaxon Smith-Njgba. My expectations for Harrison in 2023 are – in many ways – the same ones I had for Smith-Njigba heading into 2022.

After watching JSN pace a receiver room that had Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson before exploding in the Rose Bowl during their absences, how could I not?

JSN was supposed to have a monster season for the Buckeyes, but that all came to a halt in the season opener against Notre Dame when he suffered a hamstring injury in the first quarter.

Keep in mind, Smith-Njigba could still return for Ohio State in the postseason. But if he doesn't, he will have followed up last year's 95 catches, 1,606 yards and nine touchdowns with a season in which an injury held him to five receptions for 43 yards across three limited appearances. And that, my friends, is an absolute shame.

Still, there is optimism for Smith-Njigba's future in football. On Thursday, Pro Football Focus' college football Twitter account posed this question to its followers:

As of this week, CBS' Chris Trapasso has Smith-Njigba as the fourth wideout taken with the No. 30 pick to the Buffalo Bills in his mock draft. Meanwhile, Dane Brugler of The Athletic has him as the third receiver taken with the No. 29 pick to the Minnesota Vikings, indicating that JSN might not be WR1 in the mind of NFL evaluators with a few months until the draft.

Still, as Smith-Njigba said in his tweet, he'll remind them how talented he is soon enough, whether that comes in another game for Ohio State or in the draft evaluation process. Whatever happens, I think I represent Buckeye Nation when I say we wish him the best in any and all circumstances.

 RECESSION-PROOF? For over 60 years, Ohio State has delivered a consistently good product on the football field. Of course, the program had ebbs and flows – some up years and some down years. But for the last six decades, the Buckeyes were at least a respectable team year in and year out.

According to The Athletic's Andy Bitter, Ohio State is "the most recession-proof program in college football." In Bitter's estimation, the Buckeyes haven't flopped for 63 seasons, dating back to 1959, when they finished 3-5-1 in Woody Hayes' ninth year as head coach.

The Buckeyes haven’t finished with a sub-.400 winning percentage in 63 years and counting. (They were close in 1988, going 4-6-1 in John Cooper’s first season, but didn’t quite dip below.) Ohio State started 1959 ranked No. 7, with Woody Hayes in his ninth season, just two years removed from his second Rose Bowl win and a No. 2 final ranking. The Buckeyes lost three of their first five, though, to No. 11 USC,  No. 20 Illinois and No. 12 Wisconsin, beating No. 6 Purdue in between.

OSU’s problem was it couldn’t score, despite future College Football Hall of Famer Bob Ferguson taking over a starring role from fullback Bob White, who finished fourth in the 1958 Heisman voting. The Buckeyes’ 9.2 points per game ranked last in the Big Ten. They were shut out three times. It was the only time from 1957-61 Ohio State didn’t finish in the top 10.

Football looked a lot different in 1959. Like, a lot different. And without this handy dandy video from the Big Ten Network that recaps that down year for the Buckeyes, I'm not sure I would have been able to explain what the Ohio State team that suffered the worst season in the last 63 years looked like.

There you have it. The last time Ohio State was truly bad at football, games were still recorded in black and white, the Buckeyes ran the T-formation on offense, Ohio Stadium didn't have permanent stands beyond the south end zone and cheerleaders were apparently called "gal-leaders."

What a world that was.

We've been blessed with some good football in Columbus over the years. May the blessings continue to flow for many more years to come.

 EXPANSION IS COMING. Remember how I said college football looked much different in 1959 than it does now? Well, even today's version of the sport is about to change very, very soon. Two seasons from now, in 2024, the College Football Playoff will officially expand from four to 12 teams.

As we wait for the CFP to expand, many college football pundits have played around with what a 12-team playoff would look like this season, and let me tell you, folks, it seems like it would be a lot of fun.

 SONG OF THE DAY. "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears.

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