W.R.U.

Its location, like all Position University debates is an annual argument among football enthusiasts. However, thanks in part to recency bias and claims like Ohio State's 2021 Spring Receiver Room Produced Six 1st Round NFL Draft Picks - an impossible statement which happens to be true - W.R.U.'s location in 2025 is uncontroversial.

But what if that position group isn't new to that kind of thing? What if 20 years ago that same room produced three 1st rounders, a 2nd rounder and a 4th rounder? What if Ohio State has been W.R.U. for way longer than football enthusiasts realize? Hold that thought.

Just ten years ago designating Ohio State as W.R.U. would have been a spicy declaration, even for the then-defending CFP national champions. But mere decade later - same program, same CFP defending champs - it is now indisputable. What can be argued in good faith is we're  just now finally realizing what Columbus has been cooking for generations.

The Buckeyes began playing organized football back in 1890. Six of the top ten receptions leaders in program history played for staffs which included both Ryan Day and Brian Hartline. Those two came aboard eight years ago, or 127 years after Ohio State's first game.

They are the reason W.R.U.@ O.S.U. is a mild claim in a sport which loves nothing more than spicy controversies and Embracing Debate. Recency, like all biases, invite counters which spotlight a problematic detail and contextual derailer.

One of them is Football has changed over the past 134 years - of course the Buckeyes have better receivers today while teams are setting up the run with the pass in a QB-driven era. Ohio State's most recent passing offense which did not include Day and Hartline's involvement ranked a meager 81st in the FBS.

Safely tucked into the bottom half of the FBS. The Buckeyes were still B1G champions and were invited to the College Football Playoff, so not exactly leather helmet-era stuff. But meager might have been a kind descriptor for that passing offense.

This, of course, was the 2016 team - which actually threw the ball more than most FBS teams did that season while ranking among the top third for completions. The 2024 Buckeyes had just 13 more catches through 13 games, which is how many the 2016 team played.

Add statistical to our W.R.U. biases. Ohio State did not just suddenly become pass-crazy.

Members of that 2016 receiver room have compiled 34 professional seasons between them and counting, including a couple of Pro Bowls. It still has Noah Brown, Parris Campbell and Terry McLaurin extending the resume. This is what meager looks like at the program we're supposed to believe only recently became W.R.U..

That team had one All-B1G wide receiver that season, running back Curtis Samuel. He was the beneficiary of a problematic detail and contextual derailer in that forward passes in that offense were often long handoffs in Tim Beck and Ed Warinner's clunky scheme. Talent preserved their greatness. Strategy betrayed them in both 2015 and 2016.

So Urban Meyer fired that brain trust after a disastrous CFP showing and replaced it with Day and Kevin Wilson, the former his former grad assistant at the University of Florida and the latter one of his coaching confidants. Hartline joined the staff as a Quality Control grad assistant that same offseason. The rest, as they say, is current history.

Ohio State's passing offenses since ranking 81st in 2016: 36, 2, 36, 37, 3, 14, 31 and 29.

Ohio State has been an advanced analytics sweetheart through the air since those coaching changes. The NFL Draft would feel quite different without Buckeye receivers being called on the first night, but perhaps we're dealing with exclusionary bias in crediting W.R.U. for an era built on the throwing shoulders of quarterbacks mentored by Day, who played and coached the position prior to his arrival.

Six of his O.S.U. quarterbacks have passed through campus since his arrival. Three were drafted in the 1st round, two were taken in the 6th and the sole undrafted one - J.T. Barrett - still holds 25 school records, four B1G records and ascended through the NFL quarterback coaching ranks into having his own room before turning 30.

This is a QB heater few programs ever experience. It's Ohio State's first. Still in-progress.

Every player on the current roster was born while Joltin' Joe Bauserman was ripping Marlboro Reds on Fridays and souvenir footballs into Nebraska's upper deck on Saturdays, so this quarterbackaissance in Columbus is definitely a recent development.

This all infuses recency, statistical and exclusionary biased-flavoring into Ohio State's uncontroversial W.R.U. claim. Yes, seven of the program's top ten single-season passing records were set after 2016. The only reason it's not eight is because 2020 Buckeyes only played eight games. Not going to explain why that happened that year in this column - feel free to look it up if you're curious.

By the way, the abbreviated 2020 season ranks as the 18th most prolific passing season in program history. You can't credit Three Yards and a Cloud of Dust or pre-war nine-game schedules for this. Woody and Earle have been gone too long to blame them.

That year has since fallen from 18th to 22nd due to the four full schedules which followed. Here's what that page of the Single Season Passing Yards in the O.S.U. record book looks like entering 2025.

ALL-TIME RANK	QUARTERBACK	SEASON	PASSING YARDS	PLAYER NOTE
22	JUSTIN FIELDS	2020	2,100	B1G Player of the Year
23	BRAXTON MILLER	2013	2,094	B1G Player of the Year
23	TERRELLE PRYOR	2009	2,094	Rose Bowl MVP
25	GREG FREY	1990	2,062	Three-year starter
26	BRAXTON MILLER	2012	2,039	B1G Player of the Year

Justin Fields playing what was literally half a season's worth of games by Ohio State's 2024 standard still piled up more passing yards than then-top 20 efforts from title contending quarterbacks led by Urban Meyer, Jim Tressel and John Cooper playing full slates. No leather helmets among those teams either.

So, Q.B.U. @ O.S.U. too? Is that a thing? Not yet, because of too much recency bias. In that table above, only Terrelle Pryor in 2009 didn't have an all-B1G receiving target on the other end of his passes - which makes him the exception, not the rule at W.R.U.. Pryor saved his teams and may have singlehandedly averted a late-Tressel Era decline. Different column.

As for the rest of Ohio State's backfield, if you can convince yourself JK Dobbins didn't exist, there's only one other Day-era running back who cracks the top 30 all time - and it was freshman TreVeyon Henderson. Nagging health challenges along with both offensive line depth and run game coordination in the throes of coaching neglect may have helped preserve an unlikely fourth year for him. On another timeline, Trey's in his second NFL season.

During his tenure, the program successfully recast what success looked like at his position, and it wasn't racking up Dobbins-quantity touches. As a senior, Henderson and Quinshon Judkins combined for just 150 more yards than Eddie George had by himself in 1995 - while playing in three more games. The intent was to stay fresh and take those unused touches to the NFL. Ohio State's backfield will do that again as part of its title defense.

The room still attracts high-end tailback talent and produces 1st and 2nd round picks at the position, but we're not entertaining R.B.U. discussions just yet. History is stronger than recency bias, and bell cow running backs today are far more interested in hitting that second NFL contract than accumulating wear and tear while in an NIL tax bracket.

Only one offensive position group remains in the realm where it's operated for the better part of a half-century. What if O.S.U. has actually been W.R.U. for far longer than just the past eight Day-Hartline seasons - but only now is it finally obvious to everyone?

This realization requires minimal digging to realize, and today we'll do mild excavation.

Ohio State's 2025 offensive coordinator himself ranks 28th all-time in career receptions at his alma mater. Eight years ago he ranked 22nd. The longer Hartline stays on the staff, the further he'll slide. No one has a larger role in diminishing his legacy as a player than he does. Honorable mention goes to his boss.

This current era of Buckeye receivers is simply benefiting from participating in a different sport than every generation which preceded it was allowed to, and it's not just because of Day and Hartline bringing elite technical and schematic coaching to a program which spent decades running an ancient strategy known as Just Have Better Players.

Their predecessors could have done what these guys are doing now if the coaches had permitted it. Buckeye receivers today are not built differently. They're built the same - too fast, too big; too shifty, sticky hands - this has been the WR room in Columbus since Bill Cosby was still America's Dad.

It's youthful arrogance to believe otherwise, like when some Silicon Valley dorks hatch a concept like "Uber, but for mass transit." Congrats guys, you invented a bus. We've had those for a minute.

Perhaps we can blame the longest shadow in program history for why it's taken so long. Woody famously said three things happen when you throw the ball, and two of them are bad and this clung to the majority of his successors' seasons with a few exceptions - mostly due to offensive staffers unlocking the potential (e.g. Walt Harris under Coop, Joe Daniels under Tressel, Ryan Day under Meyer).

Day has mostly decided the program should move on from the fear of bad things happening on passing plays. This current era has magnified and accelerated what's always been possible when an Ohio State offense with Ohio State talent simply chooses to put the necessary energy into the passing game. If there's a difference today it's the number of guys the Buckeyes have on their bench who could start at 95% of FBS programs.

The best illustration of this is the wide receiver who ranks 36th all-time in receptions at Ohio State.

That would be recent Penn State Nittany Lion Julian Fleming, who finished undergrad in 2023 and then took a grad transfer season to State College - Where Wide Receivers Go Pro in Something Other Than Sports™ - with the intent of shining brighter.

Fleming left O.S.U. with more career receptions than Terry Glenn, Reggie Germany, McLaurin, Chris Sanders, Dimitrious Stanley, Evan Spencer and Paul Warfield. He was a multi-season starter. That guy transferred out.

But all of those receivers he caught more balls than were first or second option targets in their respective eras, while Fleming never finished with more catches in a season than the leading Tight End.

His vacated jersey number's new occupant became Jeremiah Smith, who should pass Hartline in career receptions as a true sophomore prior to October. Ah yes, finally - the guy whose photo sits atop a column called W.R.U. gets acknowledgement.

Smith didn't install the recency bias that W.R.U.'s perception is built on, but it's unlikely he would have found Columbus if this era had it not crystalized as the conspicuous, premier destination for talent like his during his formative years.

BRIAN Hartline ranks 28th all-time in career receptions at OHIO STATE. EIGHT YEARS AGO, he was 22nd. The longer he stays on the staff, the further he'll slide.

Smith was nine years old when Michael Thomas, Devin Smith, Jalin Marshall and Evan Spencer were being fitted for the first-ever CFP title rings. He was 12 when Dwayne Haskins and true freshman Chris Olave were tearing up Michigan. The only impression he's ever had of Ohio State wide receivers is the tradition he's actively elevating.

Last summer I wrote a story about Smith before he had dressed for a college game. I had no intention of doing so and as one of like two writers here who only casually follow recruiting, it wasn't a possibility until he actually did something in a game that mattered to me.

But after talking to too many people, including former players who had watched practices and insisted that even the most softened, hopelessly biased optimists among us would be blown away by what Smith would do in 2024 - regardless of who won the QB job - I reluctantly decided to do it. He'll make his teammates look ordinary was the comment which stuck with me.

Buckeye receivers have been my soft spot for most of my life. It's probably Cris Carter's fault.

I came of age during the Bruce era utterly convinced the only thing preventing his guys from flying the W.R.U. flag was his offense. Run, Run, Pass Punt isn't what W.R.U. class schedule looks like. That curriculum was a choice, and a shitty one at that. Bruce's teams simply didn't have the right orientation. They were the best in the sport, however - just ask 12-year old me. Or 50-year old me.

My dog, which I had to put down shortly after the national championship, was named for Dane Sanzenbacher. The pup I rescued that month to fill her giant void is named Emeka Egbarka. Ohio State receivers have been furloughed superheroes an revered pet homages for decades, at least in my house.

Growing up Woody Hayes' neighborhood, I was surrounded by kids who worshipped at the altar of Marcus Marek and Chris Spielman. Great players. Linebacker legends are gladiators. Mere mortals. Wide receiver legends are extra terrestrials. Not of this earth.

Ohio State has been W.R.U. to me since the days when I sat in B-Deck and thought Carter came from an exotic planet that looked like anything but a claustrophobic apartment in Middletown. That's not what the whole room looked like - shout out, Mike Lanese - but the top of the room, yes. Superheroes without capes who ate pizza cut into thin square slices. They were just like us, but also nothing like anyone on earth.

After pushing back on the Jeremiah hype a year ago, I was sent the video below and instructed to watch it with the volume turned all the way up. Smith was mic'd up for the Florida 1A state championship, the last real game he would play before heading to Columbus.

Watch it and you'll see what seems obvious now, one year into his college career. A grown-ass teenage man having his way against an upper-tier Florida high school program - at first glance, it's what every 5-star tape looked like to me. Ohio State always has players like this.

About 30 guys nationally get that rarified designation, while like 400 guys become 4-stars. Those 30 have film that look like this. I had accepted he was an uncontroversial 5-star, but Ohio State gets them recruiting cycle.

They're great players, and I wasn't arguing against Smith being great - I just didn't think he would make his rising senior teammate who would graduate as Ohio State's most prolific receiver ever look ordinary. And besides, this video showcased a game which looked like better preparation for the average Miami Hurricanes noon snoozer where there is more stadium staff than paid attendance.

Packed B1G cathedrals present a different challenge. "He looks great, so what?"

Turn up the volume. I thought I already had. Perhaps there was technical issue with the microphone he was wearing, but at first I couldn't pin down what it was - the recording felt incomplete. You can hear grunts and hits clearly, as well as the ambient clatter of football being played. But something wasn't right.

Except that the recording was fine. Normally, when players are wearing microphones during a game they don't keep secrets. You get some laughs and a few memorable phrases along with a fourth-wall break almost immediately yo I'm mic'd up.

Guys being recorded during a football game, let alone in high school are a big deal and they know it. They are also not shy about making that point clear while the tape is rolling. But none of the usual mic'd up behavior happened in the 2023 Florida 1A championship game. The volume was fine. It was just completely unnecessary.

Smith wore that microphone like it was just another patch on his jersey. He could not have possibly cared less about it. He barely made a sound. The show he was putting on didn't require audio. The grunts and chatter his mic picked up were not even his.

They were sounds other players made while trying to find a gear that didn't exist so they could almost stay in his orbit. Recruiting hype can be greeted with scorn or belief. My ambivalence was melting. What if he's NFL-ready at 17 and is basically on par with Marvin Harrison Jr. after three seasons of college?

That's not to suggest the two receivers were on par with each other technically, just similarly nightmarish to defend. This kid did not look or sound like he knew what anxiety was. He did look like Calvin Johnson with and without the football. JJ was faster and quieter than the Red October. Holy shit, Hartline gets to coach this guy.

As for what could be seen in that video, he received healthy cushions because every wise football philosopher will tell you that chunk plays are more survivable than touchdowns. It's a practical exchange. Smith ended up delivering his team both, and they left the stadium with the state title.

Ohio State was getting this guy because the position group he chose has been doing everything better than everywhere else for as long as he's paid attention. It's not that Ohio State didn't get top-end receiver talent before him. What's different in 2025 is that's the only talent the Buckeyes bring in now.

That whole room is made out of the best players their high schools ever had. They are all WR1s in a sport where the best defenses don't have a third corner who can cover a WR1. They are deep enough to make statements like Ohio State's 2021 Spring Receiver Room Produced Six 1st Round NFL Draft Picks something that happens again in a different season with completely different guys.

Ohio State's staff needed Smith to mimic Marv's threat on an accelerated timeline alongside sophomore year Carnell Tate to Moneyball the team's way into replacing the Arizona Cardinals' 1st draft pick's vacated production. Pause to think about how absurd that proposition is; we're talking about a top-five pick and a high school graduate interchangeably here.

What ended up being absurd in 2024 was how quickly Harrison became un-missed by the Ohio State offense. Not forgotten. Forgotten would be rude. Marv was un-missed because Smith replaced him immediately as their best player on the field.

MARV 2023 vs. JJ 2024 (12 GAMES)

PLAYER	REC	YDS	AVG	TD
MARVIN HARRISON JR.	67	1,211	18.1	14
JEREMIAH SMITH	57	934	16.3	10

Absurdity is comparing the Biletnikoff winner to a true freshman without smirking. By the time the Buckeyes finished playing out the 2024 season, Smith had 76 receptions for 1,315 yards and 15 touchdowns. He caught all those passes from a guy Kansas State ran off along with a guy now battling to be Cal's starter. That's not Q.B.U. but it didn't matter.

We'll end this with Smith a few thousand words from now. But W.R.U. is not a new construction. Its buildings are old enough to be completely covered with ivy now.

Two conditions can coexist. My belief is that prior to this era, Ohio State always had two miserable, cursed problems it either could not or refused to shake - which prevented the program from proving me right.

First, they always had the top-end guys to be W.R.U. Refusing to coach Ohio State's offense into the obvious destination for wide receiver greatness has been a choice for the past 40 years. And second, they always had a Jaxon Smith-Njigba lurking on their roster.

Don't be confused - it's allegorical. Ohio State could only be so lucky. And unlucky.

JSN was one of a long procession of Buckeye difference makers whose tenure came to an unceremonious and abbreviated conclusion. We do Mount Rushmores all the time during the offseason. Who is on your Mount Rushmore of Ohio State Three-Techniques? Long Snappers? Sousaphone i-dotters? You know what we never do? Mount What Could Have Beenmores.

In my lucid lifetime of watching this team, Ohio State regularly has a guy with an outsized role in the passing game, and then some cursed fuckery takes him away from us too soon.

In a sport where every player has a job description, JSN did his so well that it altered nearly every other player's responsibilities. The entire 2022 Ohio State offense was designed around his ability to make life unfair for the Buckeyes' opponents. And that strategy didn't last a single game.

Nine months earlier, it had taken JSN a single half of a Rose Bowl to break Carter's 37-year old record for Rose Bowl receiving yards. By the time the game ended, he had shattered Glenn's 28-year old program record for most receiving yards in a game by nearly 100 yards.

Ohio State is fortunate enough to attract and develop several of those types every season. One of the records he tied in that Rose Bowl was tied twice in the same game, when both he and Marv caught three touchdown passes apiece.

Two did that in one game. Against a conference champ. They've played Rose Bowls since 1902.

Marv and JSN weren't even the top two receivers on that team. Olave and Garrett Wilson watched their underlings etch their names into multiple record books from the sideline that afternoon. That team had one JSN, the literal one, which is to say it had a shooting star who left Columbus with, conservatively, a dozen unplayed games to his legacy.

He started with Ohio State during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and for all intents and purposes gave his farewell in Pasadena a year later. JSN ended his final season with just five catches for 43 yards. He had five catches which each went for over 30 yards in that Rose Bowl alone.

Carter forfeited his final in Columbus when he got mixed up with Norby Walters and signed away his amateur eligibility. The 1987 team never recovered from his absence, which was the track the 2022 team was heading down behind JSN before revamping its strategy without him.

Carter's abrupt goodbye combined with Woody's passing that spring hastened Earle's firing, which was an impossibility as long as Wood was alive. Hypotheticals are unhealthy and ripe with sore loser vibes, but I can't help myself - the 1987 team wins 10 games with Carter eligible and that keeps Coop coaching in Tempe until someone else snatches him up. Different column.

Anyway, 35 years prior to that Utah Rose Bowl, Carter was JSN before JSN was JSN.

The 1985 team's JSN had been Keith Byars. He was Carter's teammate for two seasons, the first of which was 1984 - Carter's freshman year when he set all of those freshman receiving records which stayed intact all the way up until Jeremiah Smith arrived on campus 39 years later.

Carter caught 32 balls for 476 yards and seven touchdowns leading into that Rose Bowl where he set the records JSN broke in 2022 (and freshman records Smith broke against Oregon in the 2024 CFP Quarterfinal). That same season, Byars caught 37 balls for 453 yards as a tailback.

His 1985 stat line would have ranked right behind Carnell Tate in the 2024 season and about 150 yards better than TreVeyon Henderson - but in an offense run by Earle, Glen Mason and Jim Tressel - not Day, Hartline and Chip Kelly. Byars walked so Curtis Samuel could run.

It feels silly to have to describe Byars so thoroughly because he should have become Ohio State's second two-time Heisman Trophy winner. He was the runner-up in balloting as a junior, when Flutie's closing argument was a Hail Mary pass at the expense of the team of the decade, the Miami Hurricanes. We're a sucker for moments, and The Shoe Game happened too early.

He was the preseason favorite as a senior with the trophy being his to lose, but he broke his toe during August practices and then hurried his return. Byars was also JSN before JSN was JSN.

They always have one, but during that stretch they had two. In 1992 JSN was Joey Galloway, lost for the season against Bowling Green in September. That year should have been a trajectory correction for Cooper's legacy as Ohio State's coach, and it's not a stretch to tie a season that's since been largely forgotten to the Buckeyes' best player tearing his ACL in Week Two.

Without Galloway, they dropped two very winnable games - at Wisconsin by four and against Illinois by two, the latter on an afternoon where Ohio State's future Heisman winner fumbled at the goal line twice. One of those turnovers resulted in a 96-yard Illini touchdown and the other produced the drive which ended with a game-winning field goal.

So the 1992 Buckeyes were six points from going undefeated without their best player available for the entire conference schedule. Losing to Michigan every year is back on the docket today, but 33 years ago it was impossible to ignore what Coop was building in spite of the grand finale failures. No one was born too soon like Coop was. Ask the guy who has his old job currently if he's grateful for the current postseason arrangement.

That team ended up tying Michigan (three ties, no losses, weird era) without a difference maker downfield or on special teams. The Buckeyes' leading receiver in Galloway's absence was Brian Stablein, who finished the season with 643 yards. They wouldn't have another top receiver with a stat line that low for another 16 years, when Todd Boeckman was benched for true freshman Pryor and Brian Robiskie finished 2008 leading the team with just 535 yards.

But what made Galloway special wasn't just the elite speed, hands, YAC and route-running. He was the first post-Bruce Buckeye with aura, and he did so with ambiance which had eluded Columbus while Miami was busy dominating the 1980s.

The vacuum left in his absence went unfilled until the following year, when it was filled...by him.

Recency Bias' W.R.U. roots extend all the way back to Galloway's arrival over 30 years ago. He changed the complexion of how an Ohio State wide receiver's presence could lord over an opponent and repossess a stadium's energy. Without Galloway, the bridge from Carter has a fracture - and there might not be Glenn, David Boston, Ken-Yon Rambo - arguably the biggest national recruit at his position until Smith in 2024 - Chris Gamble or Santonio Holmes.

Galloway's football speed was like nothing Ohio State fans had ever seen. It was a talking point among players who faced him, even years after he finished playing. After undergrad, I played club football in Chicago and had a couple of former college players as teammates including Nate Rabideau, a three-year letter winner at IU.

He was easily the fastest guy on our club team and probably the entire league. Nate described to me what playing special teams against Ohio State was like when the Buckeyes had Galloway as a kick returner:

They played us at home my sophomore year. Crispy November game in Bloomington. We scored on our opening drive and had the energy, the momentum and the stadium all rocking. Then we kick off to them and Joey gets the ball just outside the goal line.

I get down there. I have him all lined up. No one got a block on me. There was no juke or spin or anything. One moment I'm squaring up to make a tackle and then he was just no longer there. He was behind me. Gone. Touchdown. They missed the extra point.

Rabideau's nickname on our team was white nightmare because of his translucently pale complexion which became a blonde and pinkish blur whenever he went throttle up. A guy with his kind of speed defeatedly shrugging and laughing while talking about Galloway's was a cause for pause. Buckeye fans have notorious biases, but his speed was objectively different.

Maybe Ohio State would have begun attracting aura receivers without Galloway's arrival, but we'll never know. What I did know as a kid was Carter was different different, and that was because all of the older people around me in the stadium wouldn't stop talking about it.

They spoke fondly of Gary Williams, Doug Donley and Brian Bashnagel - but Carter was clearly something else. That meant Galloway was something else too, because the guys between Carter and him - Everett Ross, Bobby Olive, Jeff Ellis, Jeff Graham, probably some other Jeffs I'm forgetting - they caught passes and were efficient.

Olive caught game-winners at no.1 Iowa and against no.7 LSU. How many Ohio State receivers would you list when asked who do you want the ball going to with the game on the line before you got to him? Graham played 11 NFL seasons. This qualifies as a quiet period for W.R.U.

Transitioning from Earle to Coop played a part, as the recruiting profile evolved. Earle liked football players with big dreams and Ohio essence. Coop preferred track guys and extra terrestrials. Carter and Galloway were both hybrids of those philosophies.

I don't believe for a minute Ross, Olive and the Jeffs they got into the heads of defensive backs or defensive coaches like Carter, Galloway and their acolytes did. Galloway's JSN era took place smack in the middle of his college career, and not the end of it - and had he been born a few years later we would have been deprived of Senior Year Joey because early exits stopped being weird then.

He caught passes that season with Dimitrious Stanley, Chris Sanders, Buster Tillman, Glenn and Tight Ends DJ Jones and Rickey Dudley - an absolute embarrassment of riches diminished by offensive coaching malpractice.

If you'd like a closing argument for W.R.U. @ O.S.U. being a generational institution, here's one - Ohio State's 1994 receiving room wasn't terribly different from what the Buckeyes rolled out exactly 30 seasons later on their way to the national title.

That room piled up 46 NFL seasons with Sanders being named Ohio State's Athlete of the Year across all sports. Glenn was a 7th overall pick in his NFL Draft and Rookie of the Year. Galloway went 8th in his. Dudley went 9th. Ohio State was W.R.U. when all of the parents of its current wide receivers were still minors.

They're just further down the page in the record books these days. The game changed. Sure, Jan.

I had no idea who Glenn was until That One Spring Game, which for the older readers who have eluded dementia thus far - you know exactly which one I'm talking about. Pre-Internet, pre-daily coverage, just word-of-mouth and Buckeye Sports Bulletin showing up in your mailbox.

That One Spring Game was the first one I didn't immediately forget, and it was all because of this little waif of a receiver I didn't recognize because apparently he was a walk-on? That didn't last too long - Coop's fetish for track speed would not allow that guy to stay off scholarship.

From my vantage point, Glenn couldn't have weighed more than 140 lbs that spring - his jersey, which he may have altered himself to look like less of a nightgown on him, was still ill-fitting. If he was wearing plain clothes, he would not be mistaken for an Ohio State football player.

But when he put on pads and ran routes, holy shit. Glenn's cuts were as impressive as his speed, and you could see defensive backs bracing for a break - and then one move later they would be 10 yards behind him chasing him downfield.

If you've ever dropped a $20 bill while walking through a parking lot where some cruel gust of wind shows up every time you bend down to pick it up, pushing it just out of your reach - that's what Glenn looks like when he got the ball in the secondary. He'd be about to get tackled, and a tenth of a second later there are 10 yards of separation.

Henderson's screen pass to close out the 1st half of the 2025 Cotton Bowl where he was shot out of a cannon was an inadvertent homage to Glenn. No one blinked, but also - why is there so much space between him and everyone else?

Trey's speed was never a mystery, just his durability. We didn't have Glenn long enough for him to become JSN before JSN would become JSN. But the difference between them was you held your breath every time Glenn caught a pass without someone already draped over him.

He was still a walk-on during that season the team desperately missed Galloway, which is informative to why he was invited to join the team - someone saw him run. Unrefined if not raw position skills, but the upside made him Willie Mays Hayes before Willie Mays Hayes was, you know you saw the movie.

During that 1995 season Glenn had sole possession of a tailwind which eluded the other 21 players on the field. They were all stuck running directly into headwinds. The little guy was on skates and everyone else was wearing cement boots.

No other Ohio State player has ever made everyone else look slower. He won the Billetnikoff in his one full season with a starring role, and the following year the WR1 who took his place was a true freshman.

He returned a punt for a touchdown in his second game with only seven blockers on the field.

David Boston was the next iteration of the Ohio State Wide Receiver in a different alien form. Carter was just an alien, Galloway a speed demon, Glenn a blur - and Boston was something drawn with wild physical exaggeration, right out of a comic book.

During his career, Dee Miller was the other mismatch the Buckeyes trotted onto the field every Saturday. That 1996 team barely cleared 2,000 passing yards and alternated quarterbacks throughout the season, which, that's not a good idea in any era.

Miller, whom you probably just realized you might have forgotten about was 8th in program history in both receptions and receiving yards when Ohio State won the 2014 CFP. He's still up there, but no longer in the top 10. The receiver lined up opposite him in that offense is the guy history remembers more prominently three decades later.

Boston morphed into something resembling the Incredible Hulk while he was on campus, and in 1998 defenses had to contend with him, Miller, Ken-Yon Rambo, Reggie Germany and Vanness Provitt - who had the same length as Boston but a frame that could put on even more good weight.

The room now featured five different variants of unfair wide receiver. The sixth guy was Chad Cacchio, who finished third in receptions for the 2000 team. This isn't to suggest W.R.U. declined after that 1998 season, the first of the B.C.S. and one of the most simultaneously dominant and painful memories any Buckeye fan of that era has.

It's that Cooper reached the conclusion of his tenure. Coaching changes cause a reset in any program, including America's only recession-proof one. The only wide receiver from the 1999 recruiting class to survive the changeover was Drew Carter - who might have been the most talented one of the era, except - all together now - he was JSN before JSN was JSN.

Carter tore both of his ACLs in college and dealt with a number of other infuriating and nagging lower extremity injuries, never playing a full season in five years. He was still drafted by the Carolina Panthers. Carter's availability during that brief dark era post-1998 and pre-2002 may have changed the complexion of those teams.

That transition involved taking Cooper's refugees and merging them with Tressel's new recruits. Aside from Carter, there wasn't a single receiver of note who survived the switch - but that hole was filled immediately with good old-fashioned pre-transfer portal recruiting.

Tressel convinced two-way alien Chris Gamble, Chris Vance, in-state superstar Angelo Chathams and a recruit from Tampa named Michael Jenkins to join him in Columbus as he installed Tresselball. Don't turn it over. Let the opponent make mistakes. Take points when you can get them. Win games at the expense of fans' cardiac health.

Jenkins is currently 13th all-time in career receptions at Ohio State despite playing in a system designed to use him almost reluctantly. One interesting byproduct of philosophically treating the passing game as extreme risk - he ended up on the receiving ends of some of the most pivotal, heart-stopping and consequential plays in program history.

You were expecting Holy Buckeye. Nope, just 4th and 14 during the BCS national title game.

This era for receivers is particularly interesting because Ohio State's offense during their undergrad days was best known for one play, named Dave - which is when a guard pulls and a running back follows him into the hole.

Receivers' jobs were largely to block, which if there's a big departure from Cooper's W.R.U. era, it's that Tressel receivers were significantly more effective without the ball in their hands or heading toward them than their predecessors. Ohio State probably wins the 1996 Michigan game if Buckeye receivers had even the lowest expectations possible for downfield blocking. Hypotheticals, loser aromas, guilty as charged.

Joe Germaine's game-winning drive in the 1997 Rose Bowl is a lot less interesting if any receivers had chosen to touch a single defender when Pepe Pearson broke free at Ohio State's goal line en route to what should have been a 98-yard touchdown run. He would have had a defensive end chasing him instead of a safety.

That game is remembered for Boston styling into the endzone. In his era those guys largely caught breathers on running plays. Not an indictment of the players. Tressel's receivers only caught breaks during substitutions.

Jenkins, Gamble and Carter combined for 23 NFL seasons. Vance notched multiple 100-yard receiving games in an offense where the head coach told the media they were aiming for 250 yards rushing and 250 yards passing, which indirectly meant that yardage quantity was less important than ensuring balance.

Their production could have been chalked up to inertia from the coaching changeover. Jenkins' heroics aside, Tresselball's receiving yards were methodical and largely intended to move chains and preserve possession in an endgame which was, uh, ending the game.

Surely that wouldn't attract top-end talent to Columbus, the way Cooper's recruiting machine had produced Galloway, Boston, Rambo et al - except that just two seasons later Ohio State's receiving room had three 1st round picks - and a future Congressman - in it.

Santonio Holmes, Ted Ginn Jr. and Anthony Gonzalez would all hear their names called on the first days of their respective NFL Drafts. They caught their most consequential footballs from a quarterback Ohio State had to battle West Virginia to secure during recruiting.

He began his career at Ohio State as a kick returner and running back, and ended it as a runaway Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback - but if you look for him among the statistical champions in the record book, you have to scroll through 30-plus games before you find Troy Smith's most prolific Saturday performance.

C.J. Stroud eclipsed Smith's best yardage performance - the Notre Dame Fiesta Bowl - 13 times. He threw to six 1st round wide receivers. Troy was only able to throw to three. Add Robiskie (2nd round, six years in the NFL) and Hartline (4th round, six years in the NFL) and that's all he was given to work with.

That's what it was like back when W.R.U. was somewhere other than Columbus. Poverty.

Despite all of the energy, excitement, production, NFL testimony, game-breakers and difference-makers who had matriculated through post-Galloway, Ginn brought the element of extra terrestrialism back to the program.

He was the first Ohio State multi-season player to become Must See TV because of what was possible every time he was near the football. Similar to how people have a hard time believing the expression bucket list didn't exist until the movie The Bucket List was released, Kirk Herbstreit never said the words make plays in space until he saw Ginn do that, repeatedly.

Today, that expression is basically a comma in his broadcast vernacular, and Ginn supplied that. Above, he's dusting MSU defensive back Jaran Hayes for a game-winning touchdown at East Lansing in 2004 - his third of the game, but his first as a receiver. The other two involved a punt return and a reverse. Again, must-see TV.

Hayes was the fastest player on that Michigan State team. He had been the fastest player on his high school team. He had been the fastest player on the field his entire life until that play. Look at the distance Ginn puts between them, and without a running start coming off a hook route. This was The Usual with him.

RELATED Ted Ginn Did Everythin'

Ginn was on the receiving end of his high school roommate's passes for the better part of the three seasons he spent in Columbus before jumping to the NFL with one year of eligibility remaining. His final play as a Buckeye was a kickoff return for a touchdown to open the 2007 BCS title game against Florida.

Roy Hall, who should be better remembered for his contributions to the program - Academic All-Big Ten in all four seasons, a 5th round pick, six pro seasons - inadvertently injured him during the ensuing celebration. Ohio State never recovered from his absence.

The game plan against the Gators' defense relied on Ginn to stretch the field and make every other opportunity more addressable against the fastest defense they would see that season. But once he was out, nothing was slowing them down. The game and the season essentially came to an end before the Buckeye had taken a single offensive snap.

Everything changed with him suddenly unavailable. They prepared for 51 days to execute a strategy that was suddenly no longer possible. Ginn was JSN for only one game, but he joins the long list of players who were JSN before JSN was JSN.

If anyone ever suggests Ginn was an NFL bust, the correct response is that he's easily the worst 14-year NFL veteran who holds mutiple club and league records, yes, definitely.

W.R.U. in the years after Holmes, Ginn and Gonzalez - which coincided with the late stage of the Tressel era - suffered a decline by Ohio State and W.R.U. standards. The Buckeyes won a share of the conference title in each of those final three seasons, played in the BCS title game once and in BCS bowls the other two times, swept Michigan - but only sent four players to the NFL over those three seasons.

Hartline and Robiskie ascended to the pros without 1st round ribbons, but that should have been the expectation playing in an offense committed to time of possession and field position. What they brought to their respective NFL franchises was NFL readiness and no gaps in holistic position execution.

The undrafted member of that quartet - Sanzenbacher, pictured above - embodied what every era of W.R.U. should maintain as a baseline performance standard, whether they were a 5-star recruit mic'd up during the state championships game or merely a 4-star recruit (this is essentially the floor for the current iteration of the room).

Sanzenbacher lasered in and blocked the right defender whenever he wasn't involved with the ball. In the GIF above, he's doing it for the length of the field in the same committed manner all Tressel receivers carried as a hallmark. While Cooper's receivers were routinely spectators with field seats during active plays, Sanzenbacher was in every play winning every down.

In that GIF above he's using crowd noise to inform him that the play is still active. He last lays eyes on Boom Herron during an attempted tackle, but turns his attention downfield to see who the next threat is. One of the most egregious holding penalties you'll ever see - on him, inside the 10-yard line - delayed the touchdown, but the ball isn't down there without him anyway.

No receiver in my lucid lifetime required less assistance from a quarterback to throw him open because Sanzenbacher was so technically sound with his route running. After his final season in 2010, he pulled off a rare two-fer in program history by being named the team's MVP and most inspirational player - the Bo Rein Award - in the same season and both unanimously.

The class of receivers who took over during and following the 2011 scandal year left the program as CFP national champions. They exchanged one vacated postseason for another that will never be diminished.

Michael Thomas, Jalin Marshall and Devin Smith were all threats who required proper accounting on any given play, while Evan Spencer - the thrower of the touchdown pass above - and Corey Smith both contributed in ways that lubricated both the offense and special teams' effectiveness.

The afterglow from that title run marked a relative decline at W.R.U., now over two decades into producing the best receivers in the sport. I wrote here after the 2016 season that Ohio State's pass-catchers desperately needed a difference maker and that the current, albeit brief trajectory was an ominous leading indicator for a down period in the room that was recession-proof.

That room produced six NFL receivers, with a heavy assist from Hartline who was still an NFL receiver himself at the time. But during the spring of 2017 the room, full of coveted recruits, was sliding into something unrecognizable.

For two seasons following the 2016 NFL Draft, the room was a liability - by W.R.U. standards. Noah Brown - now entering his ninth NFL season - scored four times at Oklahoma that season, including this one. Terry McLaurin - twice a Pro Bowler and entering his seventh NFL season - was an afterthought back before his senior year ascendance to becoming a 3rd round pick.

Johnnie Dixon's health prevented him from being a superstar, and that may sound like rose-colored revisionist history until you check the details. He still ranks 12th in program history for average yards per catch, just ahead of Harrison Jr., McLaurin, Holmes, Egbuka and Cris Carter.

Dixon caught 16 touchdown passes, the same number as Jenkins and more than teammate Parris Campbell (2nd round, currently with the Cowboys), Ginn, Gonzalez and his position coach. He was also a team captain as a senior for a team that had nine players taken in the following NFL Draft.

He played five professional seasons himself after having multiple surgeries on both knees at Ohio State and suffering from arthritis as a teenager. Does Johnnie D qualify for the list of Buckeyes who were JSN before JSN was JSN? Note quite, but imagine what the healthiest version of him could have brought to that room.

Binjimen Victor - entering his sixth pro season - ranks right behind Dixon in program history for average yards per catch and scored as many touchdowns as both starting receivers on the 2014 CFP title team. KJ Hill - 7th round - left Ohio State as its all-time receptions leader, which today is Egbuka.

But Hill is all over these record book and holds one which might never be topped, consecutive games with a reception (48). These were the guys in the room when Ohio State's receivers' room was in danger of relinquishing the W.R.U. designation, which was still unacknowleged at the time.

Which brings us to the current, unambiguous and uncontroversial era.

Chris Olave was Ohio State's eight wide receiver in 2018, which made him a 3rd stringer. He was also the lowest-rated recruit in the room - a guy who was almost accidentally scouted by then-QB coach Day who was looking at quarterback Jack Tuttle but couldn't take his eyes off of his favorite target.

He glided around the field like no one since Glenn, albeit at regular Elite Speed as opposed to Glenn's Ludicrous Speed. Olave is the program's career TD leader at the position and ranks near the top all time in a number of marks, including 100-yard games in a season - where he's tied with himself at five, having done it twice.

Fleming arrived during Olave's senior year as the top receiver recruit in the country as part of a freshman receiving class which included Harrison Jr., Egbuka and Jayden Ballard, joining a room that included Garrett Wilson, Jameson Williams, former walk-on Xavier Johnson and former O.S.U. Club Team standout Chris Booker.

Ballard is slated to start for the Wisconsin Badgers this season, taking a similar track to Fleming in maximizing his exposure in his final collegiate season. Every one of those other players reached the NFL, and that room depth - including a couple of non-scholarship guys - is what makes this era unambiguous.

Williams might would have stayed in Columbus instead of transferring to Alabama had he chosen to ignore what Smith-Njigba was doing in practice every day. Wilson and Harrison are among the league's current stars, with Wilson securing the most lucrative contract for a receiver in history last month.

Egbuka is turning heads in Tampa ahead of his first professional season, becoming the latest W.R.U. graduate to be deemed NFL-ready upon arrival. One other player from that 2021 room, Kamryn Babb, in the great tradition of displaced difference-makers sustained twice as many surgeries as Dixon did while at Ohio State. Babb tore his ACLs four times.

He ended up becoming one of the most influential and inspirational Buckeyes in program history despite catching just one pass. The top-rated player in Missouri for the Class of 2018 chose to follow Ezekiel Elliott's path to Columbus, but his body kept betraying him

That didn't prevent him from elevating W.R.U., which feels rose-colored except that he was elected a team captain twice and was the Block O recipient his final season. The impact that room has on the program can be measured in ways that don't involve yardage, touchdowns or draft picks.

Just stop for a moment to appreciate this. The world we live in might be reaching peak cynicism. We have so much negativity which actively begs us to become and stay negative. A position room which had six 1st round NFL Draft picks also had a two-time captain who only caught one pass in college.

While that doesn't show up in any tepid W.R.U. debates, players like Babb are what elevate and preserve college football's wide receiver destination in Columbus. As for the guys whose ACLs remain intact, well - they don't hurt the cause either.

If there was something missing post-pandemic, pre-2024 CFP run from Hartline's room, it has been late-game heroics. Until that 3rd & 11 play which sealed the 2024 CFP title, W.R.U. had just one signature game-winning moment during that span, courtesy of JSN in Pasadena.

That unit has taken over and won innumerable games, but the ones which extend into the 4th quarter had been an issue prior to the program's second visit to Atlanta. There have been opportunities since the JSN Rose Bowl - namely, the Michigan game where they had every play call and signal ahead of time (should that matter as much to W.R.U.?) the first visit to Atlanta, the squandered visit to Ann Arbor the following season and the absolute disaster last season.

Part of this falls on the reluctance of the head coach to hammer this advantage instead of giving opportunities to injured tight ends or practicing personnel diversity without an objective in mind. When Ohio State is involved in a must-win game and has the ball, W.R.U. has to get the call - and they staff should be able to send Conor Stalions notification of what's about to happen on card stock before the ball is snapped.

The room today is full of guys who were the best player in their high school's history, and when the national title game got unnecessarily tight in the 4th quarter back in January, the staff made the choice to play to its unfair advantage.

Earle's teams only situationally using Carter was a choice. Treating passing plays as if bad things happen two-thirds of the time is a coward's mindset, with sincere apologies to the legendary coach who was mostly correct about this take back when he coached what's currently a different sport.

Tressel recruiting NFL talent and deploying it to block for Dave handoffs was a choice, but when his teams needed late game heroics - those are the plays we still have on repeat in our memories decades later.

Linebacker legends are gladiators. Mere mortals. Wide receiver legends are extra terrestrials. Not of this earth. Those are the guys you lean on to win games when they're in the balance.

Atlanta brings us back to Jeremiah Smith, who was finishing his freshman year on a team which had gone 0-2 in program goals up until that point. Day leaned on him during the first Oregon game, where they were victimized by an awful OPI call before losing on the final play.

The first Atlanta visit also ended on the final play, but after W.R.U. was relegated to spectator in favor of what became a handoff to Colorado's eventual third-string running back while Harrison Jr. was in concussion protocol. In an alternate timeline, that 2022 team has JSN available for the entire season. Alas, he was JSN.

The latest Michigan catastrophe saw Smith receive fewer touches in the entire game than he had in either of the 1st quarters of the 1st Round and Rose Bowl. Lessons appeared to be learned, and on 3rd & 11 with the title in the balance, Day channeled North Carolina coaching legend Dean Smith.

And Jeremiah channeled North Carolina's most famous freshman.

Forty-two years earlier, the eventual third pick of the 1984 NBA Draft was chosen to win the national title game with everything on the line. The Tarheels had a consensus All American on the court who would - later that evening - be named the NCAA Tournament's Most Outstanding Player.

A couple of months later, James Worthy would be the first pick taken overall in the NBA Draft. But a couple of months earlier on the final possession of his collegiate career, he was a decoy. His freshman teammate got the ball when it was time to win. Here's a fun fact, for the youngsters who don't remember or weren't around in 1982: Worthy's nickname at UNC was Big Game James.

Michael Jordan joined a program which had reached six Final Fours during his youth. North Carolina had not cut down the nets once though, consistently falling short when the title was on the line. Dean Smith was regarded as a great coach who was missing what was necessary to be elite.

He drew up the play for the decisive basket, which would be handled not by the tournament's most outstanding player, but by a star freshman averaging 13 points per game. Smith had learned his lesson earlier that season - that team only lost two games, but in one of them at home against Wake Forest, Jordan was barely used. He would not make that mistake again.

If you're not seeing the parallels here between Dean Smith and Day, North Carolina basketball in the early 1980s and Ohio State football in the early 2020s, Worthy and Egbuka - and Jordan and Jeremiah, then we might as well rub our faces in it.

This scene hits differently when you approach the same realization about Jeremiah that Day had in Atlanta with the game on the line and compare it with the 1982 NCAA Tournament final. They practically overlap.

Ohio State's all-time leading receiver, team captain and a 1st round pick in the upcoming NFL Draft was on the field for 3rd & 11. Egbuka holds two of the top 15 most prolific receiving seasons in program history.

If you romanticize sports like so many Ohio State football fatalists do, the ball goes to no.2 on that play. He gets the chance to preserve the lead and ultimately win the national title. Except that romanticizing isn't a strategy. Egbuka was more than capable of converting the down himself.

But if you're looking at what Notre Dame was bringing on that play as Day was - everybody, basically - and considering the options among W.R.U. for whom to put on an island to essentially make the final shot, the choice was clear.

It was the freshman Day went to with the game on the line in Eugene. The same player who should have been allowed to take over the Michigan game. A mismatch against every defensive back in the game, including the draft picks in his own locker room and especially the standout lined up across from him in Atlanta all evening.

Day had allowed him to effectively end both the Tennessee game and the Oregon rematch before they started. This time, he decided to have him end the season on Ohio State's terms.

Egbuka was never getting the ball. For that play, he was James Worthy.

Sports enthusiasts have never stopped comparing up-and-coming players to Michael Jordan since Jordan ascended to becoming the most recognizable athlete on earth. Adding Smith to that lineage would feel like a disservice to him if he hadn't mirrored MJ's freshman season with his own.

One thing is certain, however. Smith - who was born three years after Jordan retired for the final time from playing professional basketball - doesn't think the comparison is disservice.

As for where he sits in W.R.U. history, Smith recently said his Mount Rushmore of guys from the room he currently headlines is Cris Carter, Ginn, JSN and Harrison Jr. A guy who played in a rushing offense, a converted defensive back, a one-year player and the primary receiver he just replaced on the roster. They span the past 40 seasons.

Which is emblematic of how W.R.U. has operated during that span. It hasn't mattered if a recruit was the son of an NFL Hall of Famer, a 3-star discovered by accident, a track star in need of football skill, a player whose body refused to stop betraying his football dreams - or a freshman so talented, the national title game was put on his shoulders. That room has consistently produced college and pro difference makers for decades.

Smith just might end up being the best of them all. The absolute worst case scenario would be if joined the ranks of previous Buckeye standout who became JSN before or after JSN was JSN. The best case scenario is he transcends the sport similar to how Dean Smith's star freshman did.

He's just the latest addition to the program which has been W.R.U. for the better part of the past 40 college football seasons. Ohio State will continue to hold the designation in 2025 and beyond.

And it should remain uncontroversial as long as the Buckeyes choose to keep it that way.