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Jeremiah Smith is doing things an Ohio State freshman has never done, even if he didn’t expect it

Jeremiah Smith is doing things an Ohio State freshman has never done, even if he didn’t expect it

One of the consistently most impressive things about Jeremiah Smith – at least off the football field – is his humility.

Whenever he has a chance to praise himself, he turns to his teammates and coaches. It’s a tired cliché, but he kept his head down and worked every step of the way. There’s a reason he was the first freshman named an Iron Buckeye by Ohio State’s strength and conditioning team.

That humility resurfaced when someone asked Smith what he saw on a Will Howard interception against Marshall, a pass intended for Smith deep down the right sideline. He didn’t say anything about the throw – just that he lined up in the wrong position.

“That was my fault,” Smith said. “My gap was too big.”

Another way his humility is expressed? Smith came to Columbus with no expectations of his role. This is despite the fact that he is the top overall recruit in the 2024 class and is considered one of the best receiver prospects to ever come out of high school.

Driven by a fantastic work ethic, Smith is on his way to a freshman season unlike any Ohio State has ever experienced. But he didn’t think he’d be an instant star.

“Not at all,” Smith said. “This is Ohio State. With all the receivers who have been here and who were here before I arrived, I didn’t have the slightest expectation of taking on the role that I have now. That’s why I thank God deeply that I can be in this position right now.”

In three games in which he was subbed off at the end of the third quarter, Smith has already recorded 14 receptions for 281 yards and four touchdowns. At his current pace, he would break the Ohio State University freshman receptions record with six more games, the yards record with four more games, and the touchdown record with three more games. All three of those records were set in Cris Carter’s freshman season in 1984, when the future Pro Football Hall of Famer had 41 receptions for 648 yards and eight touchdowns.

Smith is the first freshman in school history to amass 200 receiving yards in his first two career games. He is the only first-year senior to catch a touchdown pass in each of his first three career games.

“I think the first thing is they get here in the middle of the year,” Day said Wednesday of what makes a freshman ready to contribute early. “It was really hard for guys not here in January to make an impression, that’s just the truth. I think the second thing is that they are physically mature and then mentally and emotionally mature to be able to handle the speed of the game and adapt to it quickly. You have to bring it with you to every game. Sometimes in high school you can switch off and unwind for a bit, play a few games. You can’t do that in college, you certainly can’t do that here.”

Smith starred in South Florida’s wide receiver factory, honing his craft throughout the year in camps and on 7-on-7 teams like the South Florida Express, a squad that also included Carnell Tate and Brandon Inniss before their careers in the Ohio State played. Smith had plenty of nuance in his running, body control, ball skills and other technical components of positional play.

For his first career touchdown, he made a wonderful play on a back-shoulder ball, a 16-yard grab off the arm of Will Howard. Smith tracks the ball perfectly, turns in the blink of an eye to catch it cleanly, and takes two steps into the turf before it falls out of bounds.

At times, though, it looked natural for Smith. Like a Formula 1 car racing past a worn-out Volkswagen Beetle.

And yet none of this has gone to Smith’s head.

“I still feel like I’m a normal freshman,” Smith said. “A lot of people say that’s not the case, but the role I took on was a blessing. I can’t say it’s on me, it’s on God and the coaches trusting me to put a freshman on the floor and just go out there and make plays and do what I do.”

The hardest part of Smith’s transition to college was learning the Ohio State program. He took advice from the more experienced players in his room and receivers coach Brian Hartline about where to go and what to do.

“I would say the playbook, just because you have different formations, there’s a lot of stuff in there,” Smith said. “Coming out of high school, one of the biggest things was just learning the playbook a little bit. But Coach Hartline, Emeka (Egbuka), Carnell, really the whole receiver group just helped me a lot.”

The quick start to Smith’s career seems surreal. This also applies to the trust that coaches and teammates have placed in him. Howard was quoted after Ohio State’s 49-14 win over the Thundering Herd as saying that he makes a go-ball shot from the press man on fourth down “every day of the week” – even after the aforementioned interception.

“He tells me every day that if you’re on your own, I’ll go to you, one on one,” Smith said. “No matter who’s on top of you, it doesn’t matter. I vomit it.”

Coaches showed similar confidence in Smith after he dropped his first career target on a pass on the screen that looked like it could have led to a long touchdown. He stayed in the game, came out on the next drive and scored on three possessions, the first two for third-down conversions and the last for the aforementioned 16-yard score.

“He tells me every day that I will go to you if you are alone insured, one on one. No matter who is on you, it doesn’t matter. I vomit it.”– Jeremiah Smith on Will Howard’s trust in him

This week, Smith is back to work and preparing for Michigan State. He knows that there are much tougher matches ahead of him. But he has the talent, skills and mentality to continue to do things no Buckeye rookie has done before.

“They’re a much better team than the last three teams we played,” Smith said. “I’ve heard they’re a better team because Ohio State has played them the last few years we’ve played. That’s what Coach Day said. It’s going to be a good game. We just have to go in there and be Ohio State.”

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