Ohio State could be confused with Oklahoma State or Oregon State as “OSU.”
But there’s no confusing Ohio State’s current place as “WRU” (Wide Receiver University), with all due respect to LSU. Not when Carnell Tate is about to make it five straight drafts with at least one Ohio State receiver as a first-round pick (six overall) and become the 15th receiver drafted from the Buckeyes since 2010, including nine since 2019.
“If you can’t play in the NFL, you are probably not starting for us. That’s what I would tell them,” Brian Hartline, who was Ohio State’s receivers coach from 2018-25, told The Post. “You choose what you want to do: catch a lot of balls in college and never make it to the NFL? That’s cool. Do you want to get really good grades and never be a CEO? That’s cool. I’m trying to get you ready to play in the NFL. Period. Your job is to add those skills to the collective of Ohio State’s offense.”
Before he was hired as the head coach handpicked to capitalize on the nearby fertile recruiting area and growing financial commitment at South Florida, Hartline, a former 1,000-yard receiver for the Dolphins, was as trusted in the NFL scouting community as any position coach in the country.
Ohio State practices are governed by NFL rules, including it’s not a catch unless two feet are in bounds (though NCAA rules only require one foot).
“From a development standpoint, [Ohio State receivers] are so far ahead of everybody else that’s coming from all these other places,” NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah said. “Brian Hartline has instilled in them a professionalism, a work ethic. You talk to the coaches who have had players out of there, it’s hard to see those guys not being successful for how they’ve been trained.”
LSU (NFL-high 16 receivers drafted since 2010) might want to argue, especially with four alums in the top seven in receiving yards in 2024 (Ja’Marr Chase, Justin Jefferson, Brian Thomas Jr. and Malik Nabers).
But — even before Tate is the likely first receiver selected next week — Ohio State counters with an Offensive Player of the Year (Jaxon Smith-Njigba), an Offensive Rookie of the Year (Garrett Wilson), two other All-Pros (Terry McLaurin and Chris Olave), and rising stars Marvin Harrison Jr. and Emeka Egbuka.
“I think when you bring it all together and you look at the names and what we’ve done,” said Smith-Njigba, who just moved ahead of Chase and Jefferson as the NFL’s highest-paid receiver, “I think there’s no question now.”
Hartline thinks of McLaurin as a “CEO,” of Wilson as “explosive,” of Olave as “clean,” of Harrison Jr. as an “artist,” of Smith-Njigba as a “purist,” of Egbuka as a “perfectionist” and of Tate as “smooth.” But what’s the common thread?
“These athletes are some of the best in the league right now, but I think they had the right wiring,” Hartline said. “That’s really the formula. They all move and operate much differently, frankly. It’s not about a cookie cutter. It’s about being able to do the job the way that you do it but then having that mental makeup to be highly competitive, to take hard coaching, to apply coaching, to learn the game at a different level.”
Hartline operates with an NFL general manager’s mindset.
“It’s not that you can go make this catch. The question is how often you do it,” Hartline said. “GMs don’t care about all the issues. They want to know, ‘When I throw you the ball, what happens?’ There’s a general understanding that production doesn’t mean it was good. That’s big for me. That’s a curl, but it can still be a terrible route. My time up in the NFL [taught me] that we should’ve gotten it right yesterday, not today. The urgency is there. I took jobs of guys that were much more talented than me, but I didn’t make a mistake. I want them to operate the same way.”
Tate is the model of that mindset.
So what if he was the No. 2 receiver — drawing single coverage — at Ohio State?
Teammate Jeremiah Smith could be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2027 draft, and it hasn’t slowed Olave, Wilson, Smith-Njibga and Jameson Williams (one year at Ohio State before transferring to Alabama) that they played together.
“Carnell is probably the smartest player I’ve ever coached,” Hartline said. “All that’s going to happen for as long as Carnell wants to play is people are going to try to bring in the faster guy or the bigger guy and he’ll keep taking their job. No one will unseat him because he will never make mistakes. In a world of inconsistency, he’ll be the most consistent thing on your team.”
