We’re all witnesses to this: The excitement of Jeremiah Smith’s historic Ohio State debut is real

Jeremiah Smith hasn’t played a college football game yet — that game will be Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET against Akron on CBS — but Ohio State The receiver is already being projected as a superstar this season.

The freshman has been making waves in both the weight room and practice fields in ways not seen by any other player in Ohio State’s proud history. Practice sessions filmed savagely on cell phones have sparked social media with his staggering catches against elite cornerbacks. In just a few months, he became the first freshman in history to earn the “Iron Buckeye” designation in the weight room and the first freshman this year to lose the “Black Stripe” on his helmet.

Aside from a few moments of leaked practice footage, the public hasn’t seen hard proof, and though they’re quick to be skeptical and label stories behind closed doors as fable, one thing is constant: Everyone believes he’s living up to the hype as the first receiver in 247Sports history to also be considered the nation’s No. 1 overall prospect.

“He’s a killer in every aspect of football,” said Buckeyes cornerback Denzel Burks, who was on the wrong end of several highlight catches.

“That kid is really 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 lower expectations when answering questions about the five-star freshman, even if the look on his face suggests a very different answer. He hasn’t yet learned that a Grinch-like smile spreads across his lips whenever Smith’s name comes up in conversation.

“I’m trying not to dwell on him too long,” said Day, who pretended to faint at the podium when he learned Smith wouldn’t be going to Miami on Signing Day. “It’s easy to see how talented he is.”

In April, Ohio State fans got their first glimpse of what was possible. His quick cuts, precise route running and one-handed catches against Ohio State’s elite secondary blew people away.

“I’ve seen this quality in him since he was 9 and 10 years old,” his father, Chris Smith, said. 247Sports “It’s still surprising to me, but it’s not surprising.”

In one-on-one coverage against All-Big Ten cornerback Burke last season, Smith twisted his body while falling backward and made a one-handed catch in the right corner of the end zone. His body control was amazing. The focus was incredible. Burke, who did everything he could in coverage, likely would have been flagged for pass interference for wrapping his right arm around Smith’s back and grabbing a fistful of his jersey while trying to hit the ball with his left hand. It was an impossible catch for an NFL starter, let alone a mid-term enrollee who should have picked out a tuxedo for senior prom instead of picking up a veteran all-conference corner in the spring.

It’s one thing to hear the praise at first glance. Hearing the superlatives expressed by coaches and players at Ohio State, 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 feet 3 inches, 215 pounds) This spring he became the fastest freshman in Ohio State history to “lose” the black stripe on his helmet as a full team memberThere’s a tradition that was started by Urban Meyer in 2013. Meyer’s longtime right-hand man, Mark Pantoni, is the Day’s general manager and called Smith “the best first-year player he’s ever seen,” Meyer said during Fox’s broadcast of Ohio State’s spring game.

Smith is a generational talent from South Florida, where he played against some of the best players in the country. He won three state championships at Hollywood (Florida) 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 inches and 215 pounds, but his lightning-fast hips and ankle-breaking cuts look more like the slick moves of a 5-9 scat back rather than a go-route monster with the catch radius of an Eagle. Over the summer, his speed was over 23 mph on Ohio State’s practice field.

“He runs just like Elijah Moore, but Elijah is 5-foot-9,” said Sly Johnson, Smith’s longtime coach and a former receiver at Miami (Ohio). “He’s fast like Hollywood Brown, but Hollywood is 5-foot-8. He attacks the ball like Calvin Ridley. He has the same body language as Amari Cooper, but he has a lot more guts than Amari. I know all these kids personally.”

“He’s the most instinctive kid I’ve ever seen,” Chaminade-Madonna head coach Damian Jones said. “You see guys with talent always come forward, but they don’t have the whole package. They’re lacking something. He has everything.”

He executes complex routes against top-level defensive players with such ease that the casual observer may dream that they, too, could easily duplicate the impossible.

He plucks the ball out of the air against blanket coverage. He outruns future starting defensive players.

“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 the skill because you can really go back to your talent. He’s talented, disciplined and skilled.”

The Buckeyes have a wealth of offensive talent, especially at receiver. They lose Marvin Harrison Jr., the fourth pick in the NFL draft, but bring back Emeka Egbuka, who has snatched with one hand Missed his All-Big Ten season in 2022 in the spring game.

It seems like Ohio State churns out some great receivers off the assembly line every year. There are ten former Ohio State receivers active in the NFL today. Four were selected in the first round in the last three years.

But that doesn’t mean every player becomes a superstar in his freshman year. Only 12 receivers have ranked in the top 10 in 247Sports’ rankings since 2010, and those players averaged 526 yards on 40 catches as freshmen. Two Ohio State receivers (Juliann Fleming in 2020 and Egbuka in 2021) were among those 12 and averaged just 132.5 yards on eight catches as freshmen. Harrison Jr., who fell outside the top 10, was a Heisman finalist for the Buckeyes (1,211 yards and 14 touchdowns) last season, but he 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 emerge immediately at Ohio State or in the game. It could be a different story for Smith, who is expected to start as an outside receiver at the X position for the No. 2 Buckeyes in their season opener against Akron on Saturday.

“Being in his shoes, that is, being a five-star recruit and having a lot of hype about him coming in … I don’t want him to feel that way if he doesn’t play this year or doesn’t live up to the hype his freshman year,” Sawyer said. “But then I saw him for the first time, at the first practice. I was like, ‘Oh my god, this kid is so good!'”

If you’re wondering what Smith thinks about the hype and the pressure (“I just keep my head down, just find ways to get better every day,” he said earlier this month.) Then take a look at his upbringing in South Florida. The kid is quiet and rarely speaks above a whisper, even when he’s praised and forced to respond in front of a throng of microphones.

“If you talk to Jeremiah, you’d never know it,” Egbuka said. “He’s very dedicated to his work, a very professional kid. That’s what’s most impressive about him. He’s the prototypical wide receiver you want, but he’s mature beyond his years, and you don’t really have to put too much pressure on him. He’ll do the job, he’ll keep himself humble, and that’s what I like about him.”

At 13, Smith’s coaches and trainers expected the small, crafty and technique-driven receiver to develop 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 age 11 that he could be the No. 1 receiver in the country. “He had a different work ethic,” he said. “… Nobody took it as seriously as he did as an 11-year-old.

Said Johnson, his longtime coach: “If he learns an off-ball move at 12:15 and at 12:30 we’re doing one-on-one drills, he’s going to use the move he just learned until he masters it, whether he wins reps or not. He’s not worried about winning; he’s worried about mastering a skill set.”

His hard work has paid off at Ohio State. Earning the “Iron Buckeye” designation and becoming the first freshman to receive this honor is nothing new to his new teammates either.

“It’s not just the lift numbers, the speed numbers, it’s the way you carry yourself, the way you train, the edge you have, it’s all of that,” Ohio State receivers coach Brian Hartline told reporters. “He’s the first guy to do that — and we leave it at that.”