ASU Football: N’Keal Harry’s omission from Top 50 list is disrespectful

ASU football wide receiver N’Keal Harry was omitted from ESPN’s top 50 players in college football showing a lack of respect for All-Pac-12 wide out.

As many of you did Monday, I woke up to a notification from ESPN announcing their list of the 50 best players in college football.

I fully expected Arizona State wide receiver N’Keal Harry to be listed considering his 1,000-yard season last season and his projection to be a first round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft so I clicked on the notification and opened the article.

After scrolling through the article looking for Harry’s name, he was no where to be found.

I was shocked.

Now, normally I don’t care about lists because it’s all subjective and of the eyes of the writers who collaborated on the piece, but it was shocking to me to not see Harry on the list.

There were four wide receivers on the list: West Virginia’s David Sills V (No. 18), Ole Miss’ A.J. Brown (No. 26), Clemson’s Tee Higgins (No. 40) and South Carolina’s Deebo Samuel (No. 47).

Harry tallied 1,142 receiving yards and eight touchdowns last season earning a spot on the All-Pac-12 First Team.

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The junior wide receiver, who led the conference last season averaging 87.8 receiving yards a game, was named to the 2018 Biletnikoff and Maxwell Award Watch Lists last month.

Now why wasn’t Harry included in the list?

ESPN college football writer Kyle Bonagura stated that he probably would have cracked the list if he played for a higher-profile program.

I agree with Bonagura. Because of the extreme heat temperatures in the Valley during the first half of the college football season, Arizona State plays most of their games at 10:30 p.m. ET, which isn’t ideal.

This season’s schedule should give him some much deserved coverage with ASU hosting Michigan State in the second week of the season as well as Pac-12 games against Washington, Stanford, Oregon, USC, UCLA and Arizona. There’ll be plenty of opportunities for him to shine.

With Herm Edwards’ at the helm, it should also amplify the spotlight of the program this season as many are intrigued to see how he and the New Leadership Model will do in its first season.

Another reason is that Arizona State has also struggled in Harry’s two seasons going 11-14 during his time with the Sun Devils.

The losing record has significantly reduced the amount of viewers watching Arizona State games with a lot of their games televised on Pac-12 Network, a channel many nationwide don’t have.

Despite all this, it’s still shocking to see Harry omitted. ESPN’s Todd McShay had Harry going 25th overall in his way-too-early 2019 NFL Mock Draft and Mel Kiper Jr. ranked Harry at 22nd overall on his 2019 Big Board as the second best wide receiver eligible for next year’s draft.

The only receiver Kiper and McShay had ahead of Harry was Brown.

Harry not listed also shows a lack of recognition for football on the west coast. The four receivers who did crack the top 50 all have one thing in common: they’re all located on the east coast.

The Pac-12 is coming off an embarrassing performance in bowl games last year going 1-8, including two losses in New Year’s Six games.

The conference could struggle again as many teams are in a transition with Washington as the favorite to win the Pac-12 and contend for a College Football Playoff spot.

So the perception of the league obviously doesn’t help his case.

While ASU has struggled, Harry has shined against the best corners in the Pac-12 dealing with double and triple teams on a weekly basis. Yet, he dominates and for him not to be listed is disrespectful to such a big talent like Harry.

Harry doesn’t speak out publicly often so I’m sure this will add fuel to the fire this upcoming season. The only list that will matter to him is the NFL Draft order next year where he should hear his name called on night one.