Brian Hartline knows 'recipe' of success in Ohio State's wide receiver room
Brian Hartline isn’t the biggest fan of Ohio State being called “Wide Receiver U.”
“I think that tag is weird, and I don’t know why people always talk about it like that,” the Ohio State wide receivers coach said. “Like, you guys can talk about that, but no, that’s not something we talk about.”
Even with Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave being selected in back-to-back spots in the 2022 NFL Draft, Hartline said it was just a product of how he and the rest of the program had always felt about both of them, what head coach Ryan Day called a “testimony” to what the Buckeyes have built.
“It’s a very, very exciting time to be a quarterback and a wide receiver,” Day said.
But Hartline wants to make something perfectly clear: The wide receiver room he’s built was not cultivated by perfect science.
It’s not one physical attribute or skill that makes Ohio State come calling.
It’s a room filled with diverse receivers that showcase many different skills in many different ways. It’s a room not built with the top receivers according to recruiting rankings, despite bringing in nine four-star and three five-star receivers since 2019, but the ones that are the best fit for the room and the unique journey it leads to.
“I mean, these guys have a small window to try to accomplish a goal that not many guys can accomplish,” Hartline said. “I mean, if you go through every year… there’s the first five to 10 to 15, 20 receivers, all those guys probably thought going into college, ‘Hey, I’m going to be a first-round pick.’ Two or three of those guys actually were. A lot of people can talk about it and what we can do with a player like you. Actually, we just do it.
“If that’s something you are looking for, you can be the next man up. But if you want to be the first one somewhere, I mean, that’s OK too. We just really pride ourselves on we know the path, we know the recipe, we know what it takes. And if we tell you you can be one of those guys, you can be one of those guys.”
For Hartline, Day, Mark Pantoni and the rest of the recruiting team, it has become much more important to identify talent than it is to explain how Ohio State is different than any other school in the country. That speaks for itself, bringing in receivers from Texas, Arizona, Illinois and Washington, and being the first in line, seemingly, for two different five-star receivers out of Florida in 2023.
It’s a program that prides itself on finding the right guys, not necessarily the best guys, something Hartline feels he has a room filled with heading into 2022.
Right now, he said, Ohio State has an extended list of players he would be comfortable playing once Sept. 3 rolls around: Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Marvin Harrison Jr., Emeka Egbuka, Julian Fleming, Kamryn Babb, Jayden Ballard and
Xavier Johnson.
Each player, Hartline said, has earned playing time and will see the field this fall.
To the Ohio State wide receiver coach, it's not about the expectation of what the player could do, but the process to determine what a player will do.
“Everyone’s got a common goal, and everyone’s got different paths,” Hartline said. “Everyone understands that. We’re just staying on our path and when we look up, we’re going to be really happy at the end of the day.”
That’s something Hartline is confident in. It’s why he’s unafraid to shy away from talking about the potential of the NFL Draft and what a player can become after their time at Ohio State.
He doesn’t like the phrase “Wide Receiver U,” but Hartline knows what he can help build, something he sees potential to continue in 2022.
“And I know we lost two great ones,” Hartline said,” “but I think we have a lot of guys in our room that can fill that void, plus some.”