NFL Draft looms for San Diego County WR Chris Olave

On Apr 26, 2022

If you saw him catch footballs on Friday nights in San Diego County, you may have guessed Chris Olave could end up in the NFL.

He’s almost there.

Olave, 21, will go in the first round of the NFL Draft on Thursday night, according to draft analysts with the league and its media partners.

The former San Marcos Mission Hills receiver will walk onto the Las Vegas stage sometime between picks 15 through 19, estimated Daniel Jeremiah, the NFL Network draft analyst and El Cajon Christian High alum.

Jeremiah guessed that if the Philadelphia Eagles don’t take him, the New Orleans Saints will. Both of those NFC teams hold two chips between 15 and 19.

Owners of the 17th pick, the Los Angeles Chargers have chatted up Mission Hills staff to learn more about Olave.

Wide receiver Chris Olave scores during his career at Mission Hills High in San Marcos.

So sound are the receiver’s credentials that when Jeremiah studied his four-year career at Ohio State and conversed with NFL scouts, he deemed Olave a plausible candidate to join almost every NFL club.

“The reason why you see him married with so many different teams in all these mock drafts is that he fits,” said Jeremiah, who scouted for Baltimore, Cleveland and Philadelphia. “He’s a silky smooth route-runner who can do so many different things. He tracks the ball really, really well. He’s incredibly smart. Their coaches down there rave about him. They love him.”

Mission Hills coach Chris Hauser and other local supporters will be watching Thursday at a draft party in San Marcos. Following his sophomore year, Olave transferred to Mission Hills from Chula Vista’s Eastlake High after his father took a job at Camp Pendleton.

Because of a rules technicality later abolished, he was ineligible for football as a prep junior.

No matter. As a senior, he impressed Hauser not only as a future major-college starter but an NFL prospect. The early clues came that summer in passing drills against powerhouse teams from Greater Los Angeles. The season he put together cemented Hauser’s belief the NFL was in Olave’s future.

“He was basically the best player on the field every Friday night,” said the coach Monday. “This is a really talented young man with a great head on his shoulders.”

At season’s end, Olave returned a punt 60 yards for a touchdown in the quarterfinals, to go with TD catches of 82 and 18 yards. He had 12 catches, two for touchdowns, in the section’s Open Division Championship.

Because he hadn’t played as a junior, he was unknown to many college coaches entering his senior year. On his own team, quarterback Jack Tuttle, now at Indiana, drew a lot more interest from college recruiters.

With a nudge from Hauser, those scales began to balance.

Chatting with Ryan Day, who was scouting Tuttle as Ohio State’s quarterbacks coach, he suggested he also take a look at a smooth, fast receiver who hadn’t played as a junior.

Day liked what he saw, and what he saw was a San Diegan who would set a new Ohio State record for receiving touchdowns (35) in a career.

Hauser acknowledged that, back then, he didn’t envision Olave would become a first-round draft selection. But Olave didn’t need much longer to instill that belief. Seeing the Ohio State freshman catch two touchdown passes and block a punt, fueling a rout of No. 4 Michigan that November, made a strong impression.

“When that happened, my gut told me was going to be a first-round pick,” said Hauser, who was among the Vista High coaches who worked with Leon Hall, a defensive back who went 18^th to the Cincinnati Bengals in 2007. The coach added with a laugh, “It’s 20-20 hindsight now, talking about it.”

Olave has used his San Diego past for motivation.

Often in interviews, he’s mentioned he was a three-star recruit. Though some recruiting analysts gave him four stars, he wasn’t as highly publicized as many of his Ohio State teammates. Among the uninitiated, Olave not playing as a junior dimmed his star.

“I was always confident in myself,” the receiver said last month at the NFL Scouting Combine. “When I first got to Ohio State, I was a three-star. I wanted to see how I fit in. My first couple practices, I knew I could play there. And, if I could play at Ohio State, I could play in the NFL. I was very confident in myself from the start.”

There’s a good chance a fellow San Diegan, linebacker Devin Lloyd, an Otay Mesa High alum, will precede or follow Olave to the NFL stage Thursday night, But, not since Point Loma High alum J.J. Stokes went 10^th in the 1995 NFL Draft, from UCLA to the San Francisco 49ers, has a former San Diego County prep player gone in the first round as a receiver. Six years before Stokes, it was Kearny’s Shawn Collins, who went 27^th to the Atlanta Falcons in 1989. San Diego State receivers Haven Moses and Isaac Curtis were first-round choices, in 1969 and 1973.

For Stokes, wringing enough speed and elusiveness out of his 6-foot-4, 218-pound body proved a large challenge in an eight-year NFL career that produced 342 receptions, 30 TD catches and no Pro Bowl berths.

Olave will have to contend with NFL opponents that will try to exploit his relatively slight build — a fraction over 6 feet and 187 pounds. He said he has improved his diet and is attempting to build size and strength, without taking from his 4.39 speed in the 40-yard dash.

He’ll have a network of friends awaiting him in the NFL. Former Ohio State teammate Justin Fields is the Chicago Bears quarterback. Olave said he’s received several NFL pointers from Saints All-Pro receiver Michael Thomas, an Ohio State alum.