The Ohio State receiver room this year features four seniors, one junior, two sophomores, one redshirt freshman, and two true freshmen.
KJ Hill is one of those seniors and the leader of a fairly deep group.
Fellow seniors Austin Mack and Binjimen Victor are expected to join Hill in the OSU starting lineup, and the fourth senior — CJ Saunders — will be one of two players splitting time with Hill in the slot.
Sophomore Chris Olave will look to continue his solid finish from last year, and third-year receivers Ellijah Gardiner and Jaylen Harris have earned mention from coaches and players for their strong performances back in spring ball.
It’s a deep group with a good mix of young and old, experienced and hungry.
There is also a pair of very talented true freshmen who could make life even better for Ohio State’s new starting quarterback.
Garrett Wilson enrolled early, but Jameson Williams didn’t get to OSU until this summer.
Wilson was a spring standout for the Buckeyes. Fans saw that in the Spring Game, but KJ Hill saw it much more frequently.
“Yeah, he shows flashes every day,” he said. “With Garrett, I think he got a head start from the other freshmen from him being an early enrollee, but it’s time for him just to be consistent with doing it. But you can only be consistent when you know what you’re doing every time, know every little detail of a route, everything like that, but that’s hard to do in the spring, learn it all in the spring. But he’s going to training camp and I just feel like if he works hard during training camp and do it every day he can help us out a lot and we need him.”
Williams, on the other hand has yet to take part in a single football practice yet. His work at receiver so far has been part of voluntary throwing with the quarterbacks, but he’s not going it alone. The vets have been there for him each step of the way.
“His locker is right next to me, so I always take care of him and everything,” Hill said. “He’s a speedy guy, long, he’s going to be good. I feel like when we get to training camp he’s going to learn from Coach [Brian] Hartline and Coach Keenan Bailey and get adjusted to the college speed. Because it’s one thing to practice it and going through walkthroughs. Once he gets through practice, I feel like he’ll get used to it and he’ll be playing at a fast pace.”
Ohio State head coach Ryan Day has said that Williams may need a redshirt year in order to get stronger and acclimate to college ball. So whether he plays or not is still up in the air, but there does not seem to be any such mystery surrounding Garrett Wilson.
“He’s definitely going to help us a lot this year,” Hill said.
“Coming in early with the skill-set that he has, great ball skills, route running, understanding the game. I feel like this spring he got better because he learned the college pace of the game and learned the plays. Once you know the plays, you can play fast. So I feel like he’s going to be ahead of other guys coming in in the summer, as an early enrollee coming into camp.”
