Freshman Wide Receiver Brock Boyd Joins Elite and Rare Company By Losing Black Stripe in March

By losing his black stripe after just six spring practices as a Buckeye, Boyd became the third-fastest freshman to shed his stripe since Urban Meyer started the tradition in 2012. The only two Buckeyes to lose their stripes earlier in the spring: Jeremiah Smith (four practices) and Carnell Tate (five practices).

Boyd is the only fourth true freshman to shed his black stripe in March; the other was also a wide receiver, Austin Mack, who became the first-ever freshman to lose his black stripe in the spring when he did so exactly 10 years ago on March 31, 2016.

The kid from TX has that IT factor, Zone 6 keeps adding to the list Welcome, @BrockBoyd_2 pic.twitter.com/FT0qSCmaXy

— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) March 31, 2026

If the history of freshmen who lost their stripes so quickly is any indication, it’s a good time to buy stock in Boyd if you haven’t already.

Smith followed up his historically fast stripe-shedding with the best freshman season in Ohio State history, catching 76 passes for 1,315 yards and 15 touchdowns, including the game-sealing 56-yard catch on 3rd-and-11 in Ohio State’s national championship win over Notre Dame. Entering his junior season, Smith is well on his way to becoming Ohio State’s greatest wide receiver ever, needing just 43 catches, 341 yards and nine touchdown catches to break OSU’s school records in all three categories.

Smith’s March 21, 2024 stripe removal broke the record for the fastest freshman stripe removal set one year earlier by Tate, who had his stripe removed on March 25, 2023, after just five practices as a Buckeye. Tate didn’t make quite as big of an impact as Smith as a freshman, catching 18 passes for 264 yards and one touchdown as Ohio State’s No. 4 receiver, but became a superstar over his final two seasons as a Buckeye. He’s now projected as a top-10 pick in the 2026 NFL draft after catching 103 passes for 1,608 yards and 13 touchdowns over the last two seasons.

Mack had a quiet freshman year after his black stripe removal, and his career never reached the same heights as Smith and Tate. Still, he had a quality career for the Buckeyes, catching 77 passes for 1,035 yards and six touchdowns over his final three seasons at Ohio State.

Boyd joins a list of freshman wide receivers who lost their black stripe before anyone else in their class that also includes single-season receiving record holder Jaxon Smith-Njigba, two-time unanimous All-American Marvin Harrison Jr. and another top-10 NFL draft pick in Garrett Wilson. 

What makes Boyd’s early stripe removal so eye-opening is that he didn’t arrive at Ohio State with nearly the hype that any of those receivers had entering their careers as Buckeyes. Smith was always expected to be an immediate star at Ohio State as the No. 1 overall recruit in the 2024 class. Wilson and Smith-Njigba were composite five-star prospects, and Tate was also rated as a five-star prospect by 247Sports. Harrison and Mack were both top-100 national recruits. Boyd, on the other hand, was a three-star recruit ranked as the No. 729 overall prospect in 247Sports’ composite rankings.

But that hasn’t stopped Boyd from making such a strong early impression that he became one of the fastest freshmen to “officially” earn Buckeye status in the 15-year history of the black stripe tradition.

“Well, he got his black stripe off today, so I'm sure that’ll be a headliner,” Ryan Day said, accurately, when asked about Boyd during his press conference on Tuesday. “He made another couple big plays today. This is somebody who knows how to run a route. He's serious about it. He can play multiple positions. And he's productive. His dad's a receiver coach, and he plays that way. But he's got quick twitch. He can change direction. He's got strong hands. I'm excited to see where his career goes. But he's off to a great start.”

Ryan Day praised Brock Boyd after Ohio State's sixth spring practice.

"He's got quick twitch. He can change direction. He's got strong hands," Day said. "I'm excited to see where his career goes, but he's off to a great start." pic.twitter.com/o0v4IibuSB

— Eleven Warriors (@11W) March 31, 2026

Ohio State wide receivers coach Cortez Hankton said Boyd has “made plays when his number has been called.”

“What makes Brock truly a good football player is his football IQ, first and foremost. As a young guy, he's truly instinctive, and he understands conceptual football,” Hankton said Saturday. “You can tell that he comes from a family, his dad is a high school football coach, and so he comes from a family where they live, eat, and breathe football. And so he understands the game like he's a three-year college student, like he's been here a while, and so he's been really fun to coach.”

Projecting forward to the fall, Boyd’s freshman season is likely to be more similar to Tate or Mack’s freshman season than Smith’s unprecedented freshman campaign. While Smith was an immediate starter for the Buckeyes, Boyd faces stiff competition from veteran transfers Kyle Parker and Devin McCuin and fellow freshmen Chris Henry Jr. and Jerquaden Guilford for a spot in the lineup alongside Smith and Brandon Inniss. Parker looks like a strong candidate for that starting spot after losing his black stripe on Saturday after just five practices as a Buckeye, while Henry also drew high praise on Tuesday from Day, who said Henry’s goal “should be” to start right away as a freshman.

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But it’s clear that Boyd – a product of the same Southlake Carroll program that produced Quinn Ewers, who never lost his black stripe at Ohio State despite being the No. 1 overall prospect in his recruiting class – is already defying expectations, including those of Hankton, who didn’t offer Boyd at LSU but is loving what he’s seen from the 6-foot-1, 184-pound Texan so far.

“I knew exactly who he was, but you always get a different perspective when you get to actually coach a guy, and see the redeeming qualities and the traits that have nothing to do with a physical skill set that makes a kid different. And that's him,” Hankton said. “Make no mistake, he has some physical gifts, but his toughness, his football IQ has truly helped him really catch the eyes of a lot of people.”

If Boyd continues to perform as well all offseason as he has so far this spring, he just might end up playing a major role right away as Ohio State looks for more playmakers to emerge alongside Smith in its 2026 offense.