Ohio State Football: The forgotten wide receiver

The Ohio State football program has a reputation for being able to recruit the best receivers in the entire country. They grab four and five-star kids from all over the place. In fact, the Buckeyes just landed two five-stars and a four-star receiver just last week.

The current roster is full of those guys too. This year, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Marvin Harrison Jr., Emeka Egbuka, and Julian Fleming are all going to get significant playing time. All of them were four-star recruits or better when they were coming out of high school.

With all of the hype surrounding those players for this season, one wide receiver is getting lost in the shuffle. That receiver is Jayden Ballard. Ballard was also a four-star recruit when he was coming out of high school back in 2021. He seems to be the forgotten wid receiver.

Ballard only played in one game in 2021. In that game, he caught one pass for four yards. That’s all the time he was able to see because of how loaded the receiver room was for the Buckeyes. He’s still a very talented kid that would see a lot of time if he were attending any other school.

Ballard might get some snaps this season. There’s a chance he’s the fifth receiver that gets on the field. He’s just not as talented as some of the other guys in front of him. That doesn’t mean he isn’t a good player though. Once he gets the snaps, he’ll show that to everyone.

I’ll be interested to see how many snaps Ballard gets this season. If he doesn’t see a lot of playing time, he could be a candidate to transfer once the year ends. I hope he does see the field though. I think he can be a really good player in this system.