Ohio State football: Earth, Wind and Fire

Sports history is littered with great nicknames. Legendary writer Grantland Rice coined The Four Horsemen of Notre Dame. The New York Yankees had their Murderers’ Row. In the early 1930’s, the St. Louis Cardinals had the Gashouse Gang. It appears the Ohio State Football team’s receiving trio of Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Chris Olave, and Garrett Wilson have begun to embrace the name Earth, Wind & Fire.

In an interview with Kirk Herbstreit that ran before the Michigan State game, the three indicated they were enjoying the nickname. For reasons unknown, Smith-Njigba is Earth, Olave is Wind because of his speed, and Wilson is Fire because….well, just because.

The segment did reveal how they think of each other. Although Olave and Wilson are expected to be taken in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft, both agree Smith-Njigba will someday be the best of the three. When asked who is the best athlete among them, all three quickly agreed it is the sophomore from Texas, Smith-Njigba.

Ohio State has had five receivers in the program’s history who have gone over a thousand yards in a season. They could have three do it this year. Smith-Njigba is already over 1,100, Wilson needs just 61 yards to reach 1,000, and Olave has 848.

The Buckeye offense is on the verge of becoming just the second in FBS history to have three 1,000 yard receivers and a thousand yard rusher (TreVeyon Henderson currently has nearly 1,100 yards). The trio has combined for 187 catches for nearly 3,000 yards, and 30 touchdowns. They have toyed with secondaries at times this season.

There is always one in every crowd who isn’t impressed and in this case it is the Fred Biletnikoff Award voters. This award is supposed to be symbolic of the nation’s top receiver. When they named their semifinalists last week, only Olave was included.

When the three finalists were named on Tuesday, he was not among them. While I firmly believe receiving awards are based on pure stats, I challenge any of the voters to make a valid argument against at least one of those three being among the top two or three in the country.

Biletnikoff voters may not be very impressed, but NFL Draft publications have a different opinion. Ourlads, who I have a lot of respect for, lists Chris Olave as their top receiver and Garrett Wilson third.

After Earth, Wind & Fire wreaked its havoc one last time at The Shoe against Michigan State, the mighty elements will descend on The Big Outhouse at noon Saturday and dare The Ugly Helmets to stop them…or even contain them.