Ohio State football: I owe Garrett Wilson an apology

I owe Garrett Wilson an apology. I’m certain many Ohio State football fans and media members do as well, and I know a particular award most certainly owes him an apology. Why do so many owe apols to the junior receiver from Texas? Because we took him for granted.

I have firmly believed Wilson is one of the premier players at his position in college football, but I never realized his impact on the Ohio State football team’s offense until he missed a game. His absence against Nebraska was glaring, but when you saw what he did to Purdue a week later you realized just how glaring it was. He’s a difference-maker and he certainly made a difference against the Boilermakers.

While his partners, Chris Olave and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, had their way with Purdue’s secondary, Wilson almost toyed with them to the tune of ten catches for 126 yards and three touchdowns, along with a 51-yard rushing score on a perfectly executed jet sweep.

He made difficult catches look routine and turned routine catches into extra yards. Wilson did whatever he pleased and there wasn’t much Purdue could do about it. I covered Terry Glenn setting the school record for receiving yards (253) in a game against Pitt way back in 1995 (you can watch that performance here). The Panthers had no answers for Glenn that day at old Pitt Stadium. The Boilermakers had none for Wilson as well.

There’s more about Wilson that reminds me of Glenn than just a single-game performance. He has that same type of body control and athleticism the late Buckeye great possessed. When it comes to his hands, Wilson reminds me a lot of NFL Hall of Fame member Cris Carter, who had suction cups for hands. Get the ball near him and he somehow would manage to pull it in. Wilson is the same way. He’ll turn what looks like a sure incompletion into a reception.

While myself and a lot of other Buckeye fans are impressed with Garrett Wilson, one award evidently is not. The Biletnikoff Award, symbolic of college football’s best receiver, named Chris Olave as a semifinalist, but did not include Wilson. They owe him an apology.

He’s as good or better than any player on their list of ten, and that includes Olave (Smith-Njigba was omitted as well). Now, I’ll be fair and point out OSU receivers are going to get passed over for a lot of awards because the catches are so evenly split between them.

Receiver awards come down to stats. Wilson has 53 catches, Smith-Njigba 59, and Olave 51. USC’s Drake London has 88, but only one other receiver on his team has more than forty catches. That won’t matter to voters, because all they’ll see is London has big stats.

Wilson, Smith-Njigba, and Olave may be the best receiving trio in the country, but they probably aren’t going to win many postseason accolades. That being said, it still doesn’t get the Biletnikoff Award people off the hook for an apology to Wilson for omitting him from their final ten.

Wilson has 126 career receptions (he needs ten more catches to move him into the school’s all-time top ten) and is about to become just the eleventh player in Ohio State football history to surpass 2,000 career receiving yards. Most draft experts have him pegged as a first-round choice in the 2022 NFL Draft.

I have no idea how I managed to take a player like this for granted, but I did. I humbly apologize to Garrett Wilson for doing so.