He leads the Big Ten with 604 receiving yards and ranks second with five touchdown catches.
He is also No. 1 in the conference and 23rd nationally in yards per catch (19.5), but Wednesday night Harrison was lamenting missed opportunities last time out.
“I feel like I’m never playing up to my standard if anything because the standard’s perfection and you can never be perfect,” he said Wednesday night. “That standard is something I’ve never met at all, so you continue to keep building and getting better.”
Harrison caught six passes for 105 yards and a touchdown as the Buckeyes beat Purdue 41-7, but he was also charged with three drops.
At least two of them were contested, but Harrison took no issue with the stat crew tagging him with the drops.
“If it’s an incomplete pass, it’s a drop for me,” Harrison said. “Whether I touch it or not. Every ball thrown my way needs to be a completion.”
The son of Pro Football Hall of Fame receiver Marvin Harrison Sr. is well-known as a voracious worker, supplementing his natural physical gifts to put him in position to be a high draft pick if he opts to leave school early in January.
That just left him feeling disappointed in himself Saturday, he said, despite production most receivers would envy.
“What hurts the most is knowing that you prepared for it,” Harrison said. “You guys see that I take preparation very seriously. I think I’m the hardest-working player in the country. For you to go out there on Saturday and not get the results that you want. It definitely hurts the heart a little bit.”
His response was to tweak his weekly routine a a marquee matchup against Penn State, which has a secondary that includes highly regarded cornerback Kalen King, though he did not go into specifics.
“The hardest part is never losing the confidence that you have in yourself, still trusting your training even though your training may have let you down one time or one play,” he said. “You just have to trust yourself the rest of the game.”
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