Mel Kiper Jr. explains CJ Stroud's drop in productivity

There’s not much to complain about when you look at the body of work of Ohio State QB CJ Stroud. The two-time Heisman candidate did everything in Columbus to justify himself as one of the top picks in the upcoming NFL Draft. However, a couple of critics have nitpicked and wondered why his second season as a starter wasn’t as good as his first.

On First Take this morning, Mel Kiper Jr. reminded everyone of the obvious answer of why, which is the talent that Stroud lost from the Buckeyes’ wide receiver room from last season and early on in this one. With two receivers going in the Top-11 of last year’s draft and another top wideout missing most of the season with an injury, it left Stroud to ‘make do’ with the receivers he had left.

“He lost Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson. And Jaxon Smith-Njigba didn’t play much at all,” explained Kiper. “So he had Marvin Harrison Jr. emerge as a big-time weapon. He’s going to be a top-three pick next year, right? Marvin Harrison’s son, the Hall of Famer. Now, you think about (Emeka) Egbuka? He came on.”

“He had some weapons. But he didn’t have those three dynamic performers,” Kiper said. “He had one great one and one really good one. Before, he had three that were uncoverable.”

In 2022, Stroud completed 66.3% of his passes for 3,688 yards, 41 touchdowns, and six interceptions. However, over 58% of those completions and over 65% of his passing yards went to either Harrison Jr. or Egbuka.

There’s nothing wrong with that in the end, though. There’s worse you can do after a top-notch receiver like Smith-Njigba goes down than the son of a Hall of Famer along with the top receiver in the 2021 class. Still, it wasn’t nearly as good of an overall room as the overall corps was in 2021.

When he had Olave, Wilson, and Smith-Njigba in the lineup, Stroud obviously had the much better season. In 2021, he completed 71.9% of his passes for 4,435 yards, 44 touchdowns, and just six interceptions.

He was even more zeroed in on his top targets during that season as 72.5% of his completions and 81.1% of his yards came from just those three receivers. Yet, again, you can’t blame him considering two just excelled in the NFL this past year and one will be a top receiver selection in this season’s draft.

There was nothing wrong with the season Stroud put together in 2022. It was arguably even better since it led Ohio State to an appearance in the College Football Playoff. Things just shift a ton when you lose the receivers that he did from his first season to his second.