School: Ohio State
Year: Sr
Position: WR

Physical Attributes

• Height: 6-1
• Weight: 205
• RAS: 9.27
• 40 Time: 4.49

Rankings

• Joe’s Ranking: 6.8
• Consensus Position Rank: 3
• My Position Ranking: 6
• Difference in Ranking: -3
• Tier: 3
• Projected Round: 2

Games Watched

• Notre Dame ’24
• Oregon ’24

Ryan’s Notes

Positives

• Solid, tenacious, reliable. If you need a receiver to do the dirty work, lead block, play through contact and attack the ball then Egbuka is your man.
• It’s not very often you see a college receiver who is as polished as this buckeye has become over the 2000 snaps he has played since being on the field as a true freshman.
• He has a powerful build that doesn’t just show at the point of contact but his movements carry power too with powerful build up strides.
• Egbuka was primarily a slot player but that’s more about how Ohio State likes to play and I have confidence he can project to the outside especially in a tight split team where he can do whatever the team needs of him with his blocking proficiency.
• I think his usage in the Big 10 will be how is used going forwards as a possession weapon who wins with consistency without being spectacular. Put the ball in his hands and good things will happen, I usually hate Deebo comparisons but he is on a similar trajectory even if he is a lot less dynamic, he is more polished as a receiver.
• His 5.5% drop rate shines through especially at such a high volume of targets, he is a safe pair of hands when breaking across the middle and whilst his contested catch rate isn’t great that’s not the type of player he is so it checks out as normal.

Negatives

• His speed is adequate for most aspects of his game but let’s be clear here is not an elite athlete and it’s probably the biggest separating factor between him and the elite guys of this class, his profile is more about power and technical ability in the short and intermediate areas, he won’t be a big help to teams who need a field stretcher.
• Whilst he is a decent blocker (as many OSU receivers before him) I need to see more from him as he gets beaten after a couple of seconds, he initiates well but his grip and base are narrow and his anchor seems a bit light, this is certainly fixable though.
• As polished as he is as an all around player, his route running skills found me wanting more, he struggles to beat man and is more of a zone dissection artist who can read coverage and sit down in sync with the quarterbacks drop. I don’t think this is something he can’t achieve with coaching.
• He was frequently deployed as a cross field runner against man with his lack of dynamism in mind as whilst I think this is a nice usage of his skills, it’s not someone you need to be spending a premium pick on unless he will be the focus of how you break down your opponent’s coverages like in an air raid offense.
• Whilst his speed was adequate to split the safeties against two high at college I don’t think it will be enough at the next level so it does limit his areas of effectiveness to the intermediate parts of the field especially as he’s not elusive enough in the low areas.

Ryan’s Summary

I like Egbuka for everything he does that is not receiver work, he’s a powerful ball carrier, a consistent presence with a high motor and he’s a decent blocker who can be used in different ways however he’s not an explosive athlete and he wins by outsmarting defenses rather than beating them. I believe he’ll be an upper tier WR2 who is a fan favourite but I worry about how low his ceiling could be especially after being maxed out across 3 full years of starting in the most productive WRU factory in recent history.