Much of the discourse around Carnell Tate as a prospect is around the fact that he’s never been the number one receiver on his team at the college level. His final season at Ohio State was his most productive, with 51 catches for 875 yards and nine touchdowns.
Those certainly aren’t eye-popping numbers on the surface, especially compared to his younger teammate, Jeremiah Smith, who put up 1243 yards and 12 touchdowns. However, once you dig into the context of those numbers as well as some historical data, any concerns about Tate’s production should be quelled.
First, let’s take a deeper look at Tate’s final season of production. While his yardage total might not be overly gaudy, this is greatly affected by Ohio State blowing out many of their opponents. Looking at his numbers on a per-route basis, Tate only trails fellow first round pick Makai Lemon among power five conference players in this draft class, coming in with a very strong 3.02 yards per route run (YPRR).
NFL Draft: Data proves Carnell Tate can be Tennessee Titans' no. 1 receiver
Now, that still doesn’t refute the idea of Tate being a number two receiver. For that, let’s look at the recent history of Ohio State wide receivers. Just one year earlier, first round pick Emeka Egbuka was outproduced by an 18 year old Jeremiah Smith, finishing the season with 2.51 YPRR. The year prior, Egbuka put up less than half of the total yards as his teammate Marvin Harrison Jr.
Back in 2021, eventual top 11 picks Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave were both outproduced by Jaxon Smith-Njiga, with neither managing to reach Tate’s YPRR mark. Going further back, Terry McLaurin not only never led Ohio State in receiving – he was never even his team’s second leading receiver.
Finally, we have Jameson Williams. Perhaps the ultimate example of why Ohio State receivers need to be graded on a different scale. Williams spent his first two seasons in Columbus where he caught a grand total of 15 passes. In search of more playing time, Williams transferred to Alabama where he immediately put up over 1500 yards on his way to being the 12th overall pick.
It’s fair to say that none of those players who were outproduced have reached the heights of the absolute elite receivers of the NFL, however all of them have put up a 1000 yard season, and most are still ascending. Not to mention, Tate was actually more productive than all of them, based on YPRR.
Tate might never be on the level of Smith-Njigba – who put up a blistering 4.01 YPRR as a sophomore – but almost nobody is. That doesn’t mean he can’t be the Titans’ number one wide receiver of the future and a foundational piece of this team.
Add us as a preferred source on Google