Report: Marvin Harrison Jr. not working out at Ohio State Pro Day on Wednesday

Ohio State will have a quieter Pro Day than expected on Wednesday as star wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. is opting out of participating, according to SI’s Albert Breer. The potential first-rounder’s absence, on top of several more standouts choosing to stay in school another year, has NFL head coaches and general managers skipping the festivities in Columbus.

Harrison did not work out at the NFL Scouting Combine last month either. He chose not to hire an agent to represent him ahead of the combine and the draft. He also did not train for the classic combine drills either, reportedly opting to work on his game skills instead of a 40-yard dash and other combine tests.

According to Breer, Harrison sought answers from NFL teams about how they would view him skipping the Ohio State Pro Day during his interviews with them in Indianapolis. Of the nine teams he interviewed with, they all said they didn’t “need to see anything” at Pro Day.

In Mel Kiper’s post-combine mock draft, the ESPN NFL draft analyst maintained Harrison’s position as the No. 4 player off the board. Kiper has the Buckeyes star going to the Arizona Cardinals.

Harrison focused on rookie season preparations

In three years at Ohio State, Harrison had 155 catches, 2,613 yards, 31 touchdowns and 16.9 yards per catch. He eclipsed 1,200 yards in each of his last two seasons after playing sparingly as a freshman.

Harrison’s choices not to participate at the Combine or at Pro Day opens the door for speculation and even criticism but his teammates know him as a hard worker.

“The best way I can describe Marvin is he’s a grinder,” former teammate Garrett Wilson said to the New York Post. “He’s always going to be the best player on the field, but in a rare case that he wasn’t, he would be grinding the whole day after to make sure that was never the case again. That’s my favorite thing about him.” 

“He did 18 reps at 225 [pounds] on like his second day of being in the facility,” Wilson continued. “I had done my test two years earlier, and they actually had to change the bar to 185 for me. It was a big discrepancy, like, ‘Oh wow, this dude is not joking around.’ It tells you a lot about his work ethic. That’s not something you just have. You build that.”