Jeremiah Smith hasn’t yet played in a college football game — that comes Saturday afternoon against Akron at 3:30 p.m. ET on CBS — but the Ohio State receiver is already being touted as a superstar heading into the season.
The freshman is making waves in ways no other player has in Ohio State’s storied history, both in weight room and on the practice fields. Crudely-filmed practice sessions on cell phones have set social media ablaze with his jaw-dropping catches against elite cornerbacks. In just a few short months, he became the first freshman in history to earn an “Iron Buckeye” designation in the weight room and the first newcomer this year to lose the “black stripe” on his helmet.
Save for those few moments when practice footage leaks, the public has not seen the tangible evidence, and though it’s quick to fall victim to cynicism and label the tales behind closed doors as fables, there is one constant: everyone contends he has lived up to the hype as the first receiver in 247Sports history to also rate as the nation’s No. 1 overall prospect.
“He’s a killer in every aspect of football,” said Buckeyes cornerback Denzel Burke, who was on the wrong end of several highlight catches.
“That kid is just special,” defensive lineman Jack Sawyer said. “I mean, that’s the only word I can use to describe him.”
Meanwhile, head coach Ryan Day tries to temper expectations when answering questions about the five-star freshman, even if the look on his face provides a much different answer. He hasn’t quite yet learned how to hide the Grinch-like grin that spreads across his lips whenever Smith’s name comes up in conversation.
“I’m trying not to go down the road too long with him,” said Day, who feigned fainting at the podium when alerted Smith was not flipping to Miami on Signing Day. “It’s easy to see how talented he is.”
In April, Ohio State fans caught their first glimpse at what was possible. His quick cuts, precise route running and one-handed catches against Ohio State’s elite secondary left mouths agape.
“I’ve seen it from him since he was 9 and 10,” his father, Chris Smith, told 247Sports at the time. “It’s still amazing to me, but it’s no surprise.”
In one-on-one coverage against Burke, an All-Big Ten cornerback last season, Smith contorted his body while falling backward to make a one-handed catch in the right corner of the end zone. His body control was astonishing. The focus was incredible. Burke, who did everything he could in coverage, likely would have been flagged for pass interference for draping his right arm across Smith’s back and grabbing a fistful of jersey as he attempted to swat the ball with his left hand. It was an improbable catch for an NFL starter, let alone a mid-term enrollee who should have been picking out a tuxedo for senior prom rather than picking on veteran all-conference corners in the spring.
Hearing praise at face value is one thing. Hearing the superlatives expressed by Ohio State coaches and players, which has produced 10 NFL receivers in recent years, paints a different picture.
“He’s very, very ready,” his father said. “He’s been ready since he was 9.”
Smith (6-foot-3, 215 pounds) became the fastest freshman in Ohio State history this spring to “lose” the black stripe on his helmet as a full team member, a tradition started by Urban Meyer in 2013. Meyer’s longtime right-hand man, Mark Pantoni, is Day’s general manager and labeled Smith “as good of a first-year player as he’s ever seen,” Meyer said during Fox’s broadcast of Ohio State’s spring game.
Smith is a generational talent out of South Florida, where he played against some of the nation’s best players. He won three state championships at Hollywood (Fla.) Chaminade-Madonna, where he caught 88 passes for 1,376 yards and 19 touchdowns in his final season.
He’s a big receiver at 6-feet-3 and 215 pounds, but his quick-twitch hips and ankle-breaking cuts resemble the sneaky moves of a 5-9 scat back rather than a go-route monster with the catch radius of an eagle. In the summer, he was clocked at over 23 mph on Ohio State’s practice field.
“He runs routes like Elijah Moore, but Elijah’s 5-foot-9,” said Sly Johnson, Smith’s longtime trainer and a former receiver at Miami (Ohio). “He’s fast like Hollywood Brown, but Hollywood’s 5-foot-8. He attacks the ball like Calvin Ridley. He has the same mannerisms as Amari Cooper, but he has a lot more dog in him than Amari. I know all these kids personally.”
“He’s the smoothest kid I’ve ever seen,” said Chaminade-Madonna head coach Dameon Jones. “You see guys with talent all the time come through but they don’t have the whole package. They’re missing something. He has it all.”
He executes complicated routes against top-tier defensive backs so easily that a casual observer may daydream that they, too, could easily mimic the impossible feat.
He plucks balls out of the air against blanket coverage. He speeds past future early-round defensive backs.
“He’s very mature for his age: physically, the way he runs routes, his approach and his discipline,” Day said during Ohio State’s spring game on Fox. “He’s very, very talented, and I think sometimes when you’re really talented, you don’t have all the discipline or skill because you can really go back on our talent. He’s talented, disciplined and skilled.”
The Buckeyes are loaded with skill talent on offense, particularly at receiver. They lose Marvin Harrison Jr. the fourth pick in the NFL Draft, but return Emeka Egbuka, whose one-handed snag in the spring game harkened his All-Big Ten season in 2022.
Ohio State seemingly rolls elite receivers off the assembly line every year. Ten former Ohio State receivers are active in the NFL today. Four were selected in the first round within the last three years.
But that doesn’t mean every player explodes as a superstar in their freshman year. Only 12 receivers have ranked in the top 10 overall in 247Sports’ rankings since 2010, and those players averaged 526 yards on 40 catches as freshmen. Two Ohio State receivers (Julian Fleming in 2020 and Egbuka in 2021) were among those 12 and they averaged only 132.5 yards on eight catches as freshman. Harrison Jr., who fell outside the top 10, was a Heisman finalist last season for the Buckeyes (1,211 yards and 14 touchdowns) but had only 11 catches for 139 yards and three touchdowns as a freshman.
Only one of those 12 players, Clemson’s Sammy Watkins, eclipsed 1,000 yards as a freshman.
Simply put, freshman receivers don’t necessarily pop immediately at Ohio State — or in the sport. That could be a different story for Smith, who is expected to start at outside receiver at the X position when the No. 2 Buckeyes open the season Saturday against Akron.
“Having been in his shoes, meaning being a five-star recruit and having a lot of hype around him coming in …I don’t want him to feel like if he doesn’t play this year or if he didn’t live up to the hype his freshman year,” Sawyer said. “But then I saw him for the first time, in the first practice. I was like, ‘Holy sh**, this kid’s good!'”
| Freshman Stats for OSU Blue-Chip WR Recruits – Since 2020 | |||||
| Year | Rank | Player | REC | YDS | TD |
| 2023 | 22nd | Carnell Tate | 18 | 264 | 1 |
| 2023 | 35th | Brandon Inniss | 1 | 58 | 1 |
| 2021 | 9th | Emeka Egbuka | 9 | 191 | 0 |
| 2021 | 160th | Marvin Harrison Jr. >> | 11 | 139 | 3 |
| 2020 | 15th | Jaxon Smith-Njigba >> | 10 | 49 | 1 |
| 2020 | 4th | Julian Fleming | 7 | 74 | 0 |
| >> First Round NFL Draft Pick | |||||
If you’re wondering what Smith thinks of the hype and pressure (“I just keep my head down, just find ways to get better each and every day,” he offered earlier this month.”), look to his upbringing in South Florida. The kid is quiet and rarely speaks above a whisper, even when praised and forced to answer in front of a crowd of microphones.
“If you talk to Jeremiah, you wouldn’t even know,” Egbuka said. “He’s very about his business, a very professional kid. That’s what’s most impressive about him. He’s the prototypical wide receiver that you would want, but he’s mature beyond his years, and you don’t really have to get on him too much. He’s gonna work, he’s gonna keep himself humble, and that’s what I love about him.”
At age 13, Smith’s coaches and trainers expected the small, shifty and technique-driven receiver to blossom into a 5-11 or 6-foot threat in the slot. His youth coach, former Miami Hurricanes linebacker Rod Mack, said he told Smith at the age of 11 he could become the No. 1 receiver in the nation. “The way he worked was just different,” he said. “… Nobody took it as seriously as he did as an 11-year-old kid.
Added Johnson, his longtime trainer: “If he learns an off-ball move at 12:15 and we have one-on-one drills at 12:30, he’s going to use the move that he just learned all day until he masters it, whether he wins the reps or not. He’s not worried about winning; he’s worried about mastering the skill set.”
The hard work shows at Ohio State. Earning the “Iron Buckeye” designation and becoming the first freshman ever to be rewarded the honor is not lost on his new teammates.
“It’s not just lifting numbers, speed numbers, it is the way you carry yourself, the way you train, the edge to you, it’s all that,” Ohio State receivers coach Brian Hartline told reporters. “He’s the first one that’s ever earned that — and we leave it at that.”