Inside a drab brick apartment building in central Columbus, games of Madden were once serious business. This is where Marvin Harrison Jr. lived as a freshman at Ohio State, sharing a unit with three teammates. Just about every night after practice, they would pile into one room, crowd around a TV and get to work.
In front, two players occupied the chairs, dueling it out. Around them, an audience formed. Sometimes, it wasn’t just restricted to the four roommates. Teammates poured in from neighboring units, getting in on the action.
Then, inevitably, they would realize they were down a man. One member of the group was sitting quietly to the side.
At first, it was a curiosity. Eventually, it was just the expectation. This is what Harrison did when he wasn’t on the sticks. While his teammates watched each other play, Harrison pulled up an extra chair, grabbed his iPad and started breaking down film. Not Ohio State film. Film of his favorite receivers across the NFL.
He’d pull up the camera angle showing every player, the All-22, watching Davante Adams’ releases. Watching Mike Evans at the top of his routes. Watching how Tyreek Hill weaponized his speed. Sometimes, he’d dig into the past. Julio Jones. Randy Moss. His dad, Marvin Harrison Sr.
Always, the purpose was the same: use every moment to get better. Just don’t think that Harrison’s diversions detracted from his Madden ability. When Kyle McCord, his roommate and quarterback, faced Harrison, he felt like he was going against an offensive coordinator. It didn’t matter what plays McCord picked on defense, because Harrison would call hot routes to get his receivers in space. It took, McCord estimates, six months to win a game off his receiver.
“But when I did,” McCord said, “he didn’t hear the end of it.”
Soon, Big Ten defenses began to understand McCord’s frustrations.
Three years earlier, Harrison bore only a vague resemblance to the player who would soon become one of the most anticipated rookies in NFL history. He was already 6 feet tall, with the pedigree to carry a reputation throughout Philadelphia high school football, but he looked no older than his 15 years. His frame was skin and bones. Mentally, he was still coming to understand the complex systems run at St. Joseph’s Prep.
“It was like drinking out of a firehose,” passing game coordinator Ryne Morrison said.
That would soon change.
In the NFL, Harrison has a head coach, Jonathan Gannon, who emphasizes the phrase “know-know.” He wants his players to understand concepts on a deeper level so that they’re prepared for anything they see on Sundays. As a high school sophomore, Harrison already shared that mindset.
“He wanted to understand the plan,” said Mark Shaw, his receivers coach.
That meant sitting in meetings, asking nonstop questions. What does this concept do? How do you attack this type of corner? Are we aligned? Am I looking at this the right way?
Harrison Jr. had a unique resource to continue his quest for learning. Hall of Famer Harrison Sr. wanted to keep tabs on his son, but he wasn’t the type to intrude. At practice, that meant finding a perch to watch from afar. Sometimes, he would stand by the goalposts, chatting with the kickers. That was as close as he would come.
Near enough to analyze, far enough to provide space.
When Harrison Jr. returned home, he would ask his dad what he saw. Why did I lose this one-on-one? Why was the DB able to break as quickly as he did? What kind of indicator did I give him?
This is where Harrison Jr. could dive fully into the personal minutiae. That meant breaking down the tiniest details such as where his pad level was at the top of his breaks and whether his thumbs were aligned properly at the catch point.
At the time, the St. Joseph’s Prep coaching staff didn’t know whether Harrison’s curiosity was natural or taught. This fall, they got their answer. Freshman Jett Harrison, Marvin’s younger brother, has the same demeanor.
“It’s almost like a family tradition,” offensive coordinator Tom Sugden said. “Marvin Sr. instilled work ethic and process.”
But while everyone around Harrison credits his father, the Cardinals rookie has another explanation.
“I gotta credit my mom, too, a lot,” Harrison said. “She helped me, always forcing me into academics, to make sure I get good grades. So it comes from there as well.”
At the same time as Harrison was learning how to dominate with his brain, he began developing the physical traits that would one day make him the NFL’s fourth overall pick. With his work in the weight room, he grew to 190 pounds. With his work on the track, he added a new level of burst.
Soon, it coalesced into production on the field. Gabe Infante, Harrison’s first head coach at St. Joseph’s Prep, remembers a playoff game in Altoona, Pennsylvania, his sophomore year. The playbook that week leaned heavily on run-pass options (RPOs), but with a comfortable lead, the coaches told McCord — who was also Harrison’s quarterback in high school — to just hand it off. He and Harrison, though, couldn’t bring themselves to do that. Instead, they kept finding open grass downfield in a 37-0 win. That season, Harrison finished with 724 yards as St. Joseph’s Prep won the state title.
The Hawks were only getting started. As a junior, Harrison’s diligent study began to pay off. He learned how to read defensive backs and find the holes in zone coverages. When he and Sahmir Hagans would switch sides, Harrison often gave his number two receiver a brief scouting report. “How a certain safety was playing,” Hagans said. “How the coverage was being dictated.” Against unprepared opponents, those tips could open up a defense.
“It allowed us to fix things on the fly,” Sugden said. “And capitalize on things and get Marvin in some good situations so that he could be successful.”
But even as the accolades piled up, Harrison’s quest for perfection didn’t stop. If he and McCord missed a throw in practice, they stayed afterward and repeated the route until they ran it to perfection at least five times in a row.
Ahead of the state semifinals during Harrison’s junior year, backup quarterback Malik Cooper filled in for an injured McCord. That week in practice, the offense was working on a play that featured a backside dig route from Cooper to Harrison. In Shaw’s estimation, Harrison made the whole team repeat the same play 30 times.
“His mindset was, if I don’t run this enough times with him, I’m not gonna make him comfortable,” Shaw said.
On Friday night, St. Joseph’s Prep ran that exact play to convert a late 3rd and 11. Harrison scored later on the drive, tying the game as the clock expired. The Hawks won in overtime and claimed a second straight title the next week.
As a senior, the trajectory continued. More dominance, another state title. This time, it was almost too easy. In a COVID-shortened season, St. Joseph’s Prep went 6-0 with an average winning margin of 31 points. In the state championship game, Harrison set a Philadelphia city record with his 37th career touchdown.
“Did I know he was gonna be this great when he was a junior in high school? Not really,” Shaw said. “Senior year? Yes.”
It’s easy to forget now, but in the class of 2021, Harrison was only a four-star prospect. This was not, as his name would suggest, a player destined for stardom. By 247Sports’ composite rankings, the wide receiver recruit one spot ahead of him was Destyn Hill, who has six career catches at the college level for 87 yards.
“To say even at that time that we knew that he would become the player that he is today, that would be a stretch,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said recently on The Dave Pasch Podcast.
But, like everyone before him at St. Joseph’s Prep, Day quickly realized the type of player he had.
After a few months with Harrison, Day’s staff had to change the rules surrounding their Monarc machine. A hyper-modern version of a Jugs machine, the system can fire footballs at receivers with no coach needed to load them. Armed with this new technology, Harrison rarely stopped.
Here, strength and conditioning coach Mickey Marotti saw an opportunity. He created a rule that receivers couldn’t use the machine on their own. The point was not to punish Harrison. Rather, the coaches knew that nothing would hinder him. So by mandating that multiple receivers be present, it forced their other players to keep up with Harrison’s workload.
Reis Stocksdale, a walk-on receiver, saw all of this first-hand. Harrison took Stocksdale under his mentorship, providing a window into how he worked.
In the offseason, Stocksdale remembers Harrison training and how many steps he took to get in and out of his breaks. He was best at using four steps, but he knew three or five would sometimes be preferable in a game situation. So here, on the back fields of Columbus, he trained each possibility on every type of route.
During the season, Harrison narrowed his focus. Each week, Ohio State had specific plays game-planned for its upcoming opponent. After practice, Harrison would return to the field and train the routes he was asked to run on those specific plays. He dedicated one day each week to first and second down plays, another day to third down plays.
“Obviously he was good coming in,” Stocksdale said. “But because of how hard he worked, he basically improved everything and that’s what made him the receiver he is.”
To McCord, one sequence last November epitomized the rewards of that labor. With Ohio State locked in a close game against Rutgers, the two connected on an end zone fade that the quarterback estimated they had thrown “literally thousands” of times. Two drives later, McCord found Harrison on a stop route, releasing the ball before Harrison had even begun his break.
“I just knew,” McCord said, “exactly how he would react to it.”
It was, in essence, the type of sequence that transformed Harrison’s life over the past three years; from a promising freshman to the beacon of hope for an NFL franchise.
Arizona Cardinals catch a foundational star
Kyler Murray brushed aside the question, but not because he wanted to be rude. Sitting behind a podium four days before the Cardinals’ season opener, he was asked what advice he has for Harrison entering his rookie season. The prompt almost seemed to catch him off guard.
“I don’t really view him as a rookie, to be honest,” Murray said. “I know he is but man, his ability and his mental, it’s not on a level of a rookie.”
To those who know Harrison, this is a familiar learning curve. Teammates went through it at LaSalle High in 2017, at St. Joseph’s Prep in 2018 and at Ohio State in 2021. Now, it’s arrived in the NFL.
The stories take on an eerily familiar tone. On the Jugs machine after practice, Harrison catches exactly 200 balls every day. It might be 199 or 201, he admits, but only if he loses count. His routes, too, come with pro-level precision. The Cardinals’ coaching staff is adamant about the exact number of steps required on each route, a crucial piece of their offensive timing. That doesn’t bother Harrison.
“We’ve had some guys that have come in from other teams and they can’t seem to understand or grasp, you’re running this route after your fourth outside step,” receiver Michael Wilson said. “A lot of guys can’t do that. He had no problems with doing that from Day 1.”
Around the locker room, his “poise” is a common descriptor. “The learning curve,” offensive coordinator Drew Petzing said, “wasn’t quite as steep.” On the rare occasions when Harrison needed a reminder, he never required a second.
Now, the most important step is here: taking that growth to the field.
“This,” Harrison said, “is what I’ve been waiting for.”
And what he’s been preparing for.