What school is wide receiver university? Is it Ohio State? USC? LSU or Alabama?
Ohio State’s recent run of wide receiver excellence, that includes four receivers going in the first round of the NFL draft the past 3 seasons – Marvin Harrison Jr. (2024), Jaxon Smith-Njigba (2023), Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson (2022) – certainly makes it feel like it.
But what do the numbers say? And of course, what criteria to use based on the numbers? Big Jeff’s Football.com looked at data over the past 10 NFL drafts (2015 to 2024). The draft is the easiest and most consistent way to evaluate the ability of a program to generate players with pro potential. Players making NFL rosters is even better but those are extremely fluid making it harder to analyze. So, let’s stick to draft info for now.
Looking at the past 10 years of the NFL draft (see Exhibit 1), the Buckeyes do look like Wide Receiver University ranking #1 with thirteen players drafted across all rounds, followed by Alabama and LSU tied at #2 with ten draftees each and Florida and Georgia tied for 4th with nine each, then Clemson, North Carolina and USC tied for 6th with eight each.
What School is Wide Receiver University?
Exhibit 1: WRs Drafted Across all NFL Rounds over 10 Years (2015 to 2024)
| Teams | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | Grand Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ohio St. | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 13 | ||
| 2 | Alabama | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 10 | |||
| 2 | LSU | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 10 | ||||
| 4 | Florida | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9 | |||
| 4 | Georgia | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 9 | |||
| 6 | Clemson | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 8 | ||||
| 6 | North Carolina | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 8 | |||||
| 6 | USC | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 8 | |||
| 9 | Oklahoma | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 | |||
| 9 | Michigan | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 7 |
Notably for the Big Ten, Michigan is also represented in the Top 10 tied for 9th with Oklahoma with seven wide receivers each. For the Wolverines that includes Jehu Chesson, Amara Darboh, Donovan Peoples-Jones, Nico Collins, Ronnie Bell, Roman Wilson and Cornelius Johnson – but the highest round was Round 3 that included 3 players (Darboh, Collins and Wilson).
New Big Ten member USC’s eight receivers included JuJu Smith-Schuster, Michael Pittman Jr., Amon-Ra St. Brown, Tahj Washington, Brenden Rice and then first round picks Nelson Agholor, Drake London and Jordan Addison.
But is 10 years the best time-period to use? I would argue that is the longest period to use if you want the information to represent best recent history. However, let’s see what the data looks like over the past 5 years (see Exhibit 2).
Exhibit 2: WRs Drafted Across all NFL Rounds over 5 Years (2020 to 2024)
| Teams | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | Grand Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 7 | |
| 1 | LSU | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 7 | |
| 3 | USC | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 6 |
| 3 | Florida | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | |
| 5 | Texas | 2 | 3 | 5 | |||
| 5 | Tennessee | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | |
| 5 | Ohio St. | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 5 | |
| 5 | Michigan | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | |
| 5 | North Carolina | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 | ||
| 10 | Central Florida | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | ||
| 10 | South Carolina | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
The NFL draft data over 5 years tells a different story on which school is wide receiver university. Ohio State now drops down to tied for 5th with five receivers drafted and that is tied with Texas, Tennessee and Michigan. Alabama and LSU move up to tied for 1st with seven receivers drafted, followed by USC and Florida tied for 3rd with six receivers taken.
Another way to slice this though, is looking at who is producing “elite” wide receiver talent. Though it’s not an exact science, let’s look at two versions of this. First, let’s assume first round WR picks ONLY equates to elite talent (see Exhibit 3). Second, let’s assume both first AND second round WR picks equates to elite talent (see Exhibit 4).
Exhibit 3: First Round WRs in NFL Draft over 10 Years (2015 to 2024)
Teams 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 Grand Total
1 Alabama 1 1 2 2 1 7
2 Ohio St. 2 1 1 4
2 LSU 1 1 2 4
4 TCU 1 1 1 3
4 USC 1 1 1 3
6 Florida 1 1 2
6 Oklahoma 1 1 2
6 Arizona St. 1 1 2
6 Washington 1 1 2
Exhibit 4: First AND Second Round WRs in NFL Draft over 10 Years (2015 to 2024)
| Teams | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | Grand Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ohio St. | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 8 | |||
| 1 | Alabama | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 8 | |||||
| 3 | LSU | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 6 | ||||||
| 4 | Oklahoma | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | |||||
| 4 | USC | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | |||||
| 4 | Mississippi | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 5 | ||||||
| 7 | Washington | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | |||||||
| 8 | Florida | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | |||||||
| 8 | TCU | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | |||||||
| 8 | Baylor | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | |||||||
| 8 | Georgia | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | |||||||
| 8 | Western Michigan | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
Looking at first round receivers only in Exhibit 3, Alabama is clearly the best with 7 players taken, followed by Ohio State and LSU tied for 2nd with 4 each and then tied for 4th with three each is TCU and USC. It’s like Alabama is only interested in producing first round receivers since they have an incredible 70% (7 of 10 total wide receivers) first round hit rate.
But when you expand the definition of elite wide receivers to both the first and second round (in Exhibit 4), both Ohio State and Alabama tie for 1st with eight WRs each, followed by LSU in 3rd with six, and then Oklahoma, USC and Mississippi tie for 4th with five each.
For me, the draft data is saying that Alabama has an edge over both Ohio State and LSU but of course it depends on what metric you place the most value on. And when you look at the list of receivers by team you can see why. Alabama has well known stars ike Amari Cooper, Calvin Ridley, Jerry Jeudy, Jaylon Waddle and DeVanta Smith. LSU has stars like Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase. And Ohio State has well known names like Michael Thomas, Terry McLaurin, Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson.
Beyond those first three teams, I don’t think other schools have a very strong argument but in the next tier I would put Florida, USC and Oklahoma.
What if we added the element of production in the NFL to the equation though? Maybe this would give us a more clear-cut winner. In Exhibit 5, I take our Top 3 of Alabama, Ohio State and LSU and provide some summary NFL statistics. This is NFL data for players drafted over the past 10 years (2015 through 2014).
Exhibit 5: 10-Year Wide Receiver NFL Production (for players drafted from 2015-2024).
| School | Number Drafted Players | Production (Avg. NFL Receiving Yards/Yr.) | Production (Avg. NFL Receiving TDs/Yr) | Total Production (NFL Receiving Yards) | Total Production (NFL TDs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 10 | 555 | 3.1 | 25,016 | 151 |
| Ohio State | 13 | 446 | 2.1 | 23,419 | 117 |
| LSU | 10 | 402 | 2.4 | 16,010 | 97 |
Based on these NFL production statistics, I think we get a clearer pecking order to determine which school is wide receiver university. Alabama leads in all 4 summary metrics including each of their receivers averaging 555 yards/year for each season played, 3.1 receiving TDs/year, 20,516 total NFL receiving yards and 151 total NFL touchdowns.
Ohio State is clearly second in production with the second best stats in 3 of 4 categories including 446 yards/year receiving per season played, 23,419 total NFL receiving yards and 117 total NFL touchdowns. LSU is second in one category – 2.4 average receiving TDs/year per player, but rank 3rd across the other three production categories.
This all adds up to Alabama being #1 for Wide Receiver University, Ohio State is #2 and LSU is #3. What do you think?
Finally, as a fun thing. How do you think each Power 5 conference ranks in generating NFL wide receivers? Let’s keep this fairly simple and look at the number of NFL drafted players over 10 years in Exhibit 6.
Exhibit 6: WRs Drafted by Conference Across all NFL Rounds – 10 Years (2015 to 2024)
| Teams | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | Grand Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Other | 8 | 8 | 11 | 13 | 9 | 8 | 6 | 10 | 8 | 6 | 87 |
| 2 | SEC | 5 | 6 | 5 | 8 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 70 |
| 3 | Big 10 | 6 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 46 |
| 4 | Pac 12 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 9 | 41 |
| 5 | ACC | 6 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 7 | 5 | 6 | 41 | |
| 6 | Big 12 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 40 |
| 7 | Grand Total | 34 | 31 | 32 | 34 | 28 | 35 | 34 | 28 | 34 | 35 | 325 |
Not surprisingly, given the SEC has 2 of the top 3 programs for receivers in Alabama and LSU, the SEC comes in at #1 generating 70 wide receiver draft picks from 2015 through 2024. Second place is the Big Ten with 46 wide receivers drafted, followed by the Pac 12 and ACC tied for third with 41 each and the Big 12 come in last at 40.
This fits the narrative that the SEC has better athletes and have more explosive offenses than the other conferences.
https://www.ranker.com/list/best-ohio-state-buckeyes-wide-receivers/ranker-college-football
https://www.si.com/college/ohiostate/news/ohio-state-buckeyes-wide-receivers-receive-massive-ranking
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