Ohio State Receiver Emeka Egbuka Announces Return For Senior Season

Ohio State wide receiver Emeka Egbuka announced that he is putting the NFL Draft off for one more year and returning for his senior season in 2024.

Egbuka came into the 2023 season projected as a future first-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft thanks to a sophomore season in 2022 where he caught 74 passes for 1,151 yards and 10 touchdowns. Unfortunately, Egbuka dealt with injuries this past season, missing three games in the middle of the season and never being fully healthy until the Cotton Bowl against Missouri.

Still, he caught 41 passes for 515 yards and four touchdowns this season, including seven receptions for 96 yards against Notre Dame early in the year.

Fellow wide receiver Marvin Harrison, Jr. has yet to announce his decision, but he is expected to enter the draft and be a top-five pick this April.

The return of Egbuka immediately makes a young receiving corps much more experienced. The Buckeyes have lost two seniors from the 2023 team, as Julian Fleming transferred to Penn State, and Xavier Johnson exhausted his eligibility. Also, freshmen Noah Rogers and Bryson Rodgers both entered the transfer portal following the season, so this is a thinner room than offensive coordinator Brian Hartline was planning to have in 2024.

Egbuka has spent the bulk of his OSU career in the slot, but where he will primarily line up in 2024 is still to be decided. He has the ability to play any of the three receiver positions, as does Carnell Tate, who caught 18 passes for 264 yards and a touchdown this past season as a true freshman.

Outside of Egbuka and Tate, the Buckeyes are currently returning just 11 career catches — with 10 of those belonging to third-year player Jayden Ballard and one to true freshman Brandon Inniss.

Ohio State has also signed a pair of five-star wide receivers in Jeremiah Smith and Mylan Graham. Smith is considered by most to be the top prospect in the entire 2024 recruiting class. He has enrolled for winter classes. Graham will not enroll until the spring.

Egbuka will be the Buckeyes’ top target in 2024, which should propel him back into the first-round discussion when the 2025 mock drafts start coming out. More importantly, he will give Ohio State’s starting quarterback a reliable target who has performed in big games and is hungry to perform in many more.

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