michael cohen
College Football and College Basketball Writer
PASADENA, California — As the final 10 minutes of the College Football Playoff quarterfinals ended, with the Rose Bowl Stadium clock confusingly lopsided, Chris Smith shuffled through the 18 rows of Section 3 until he reached the aisle. The father of Ohio State’s most popular player and the nation’s most talented freshman phenom, Jeremiah Smith, wore a crimson sweatshirt provided to him by Battle Sports, the football apparel company with which his son has an endorsement deal. As the evening temperature dropped into the mid-50s and a set of headphones wrapped around his ears, he pulled the hood over his head. Aside from the fact that he was sitting in the Buckeyes’ family section, which occupied the first few rows behind the Ohio State bench, there was nothing to indicate that Chris Smith had any connection to the offensive MVP, the fastest-rising star in sports. It ended with a 41-21 annihilation of top seed Oregon.
As Smith stepped out with his brother Geno Smith Jr., father of Seattle Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith III, the family’s newest prodigy completed the evening’s work. He had already raced across the formation and converted a short pass from quarterback Will Howard into a rushing 45-yard touchdown on Ohio State’s first possession, surprising a section of the Ducks faithful nearby by waltzing into the end zone with no defenders in sight. I did it. He leapt between two defenders already along the sideline to secure the catch with breathtaking agility, landing softly between them for a 29-yard gain. He barreled through Oregon’s defense from a slot alignment for a 43-yard score that already had no one in the opposing secondary deciding to cover him. And he’s already attempted back-to-back passes near the midway point of the third quarter. First a wobbly ramp, then a pirouette toe tap, facilitating a rushing touchdown that extinguished a glimmer of hope. The Pro Dux crowd was obsessed. All told, Smith’s damage amounted to seven catches for a career-high 187 yards and two touchdowns. That was the stat line that made his father’s eyes widen as he scanned the box score in the final moments of the game.
“I think (coaches) are tired of hearing outside noise,” Chris Smith told FOX Sports with a mischievous smile and a hint of sarcasm. “I was hoping he could hit 200 yards.”
And he probably would have if Oregon hadn’t staved off a 34-0 deficit by the 2:59 mark of the second quarter. When the battle took place in mid-October. That night, Smith caught nine passes for 100 yards and one touchdown in a 32-31 loss to Oregon. He had 118 yards in the first quarter on Wednesday night, a jaw-dropping performance that prompted Oregon coach Dan Lanning to describe Smith as “NFL-ready” two years before he was eligible to declare for the draft. Offensive coordinator Chip Kelly went even further, declaring that Smith “might be a once-in-a-lifetime guy.”
This made the second half of Ohio State’s season very confusing, and Smith’s involvement seemed to decline. He had a season-high 13 targets during the loss to Oregon and had never exceeded seven targets in a game until he faced the Ducks again on Wednesday night. A large part of the ridiculous confusion surrounding the Buckeyes’ loss to Michigan in late November was that Smith caught just five passes for 35 yards against a team missing All-American cornerback Will Johnson.
“I had a bad taste in my mouth after that game,” Smith said. “We just had to come in the next day, see what the problem was, fix it and go out on the field and work on it. We knew we had to get the ball on the perimeter, make shots and win one-on-ones. And that’s what we did today. It’s work.”
It’s unlikely he’ll say it publicly, but when Smith returned home to Miami Gardens, Florida after early spring practice as an early enrollee, he realized he was the best player on Ohio State’s incredibly talented receiving corps. During his visit, he met local content creator Darrell Streeter, founder of a popular YouTube account known for documenting grassroots soccer in South Florida. Streeter was someone Smith had been friendly with for nearly a decade after a video of his wildly popular youth team, the Miami Gardens Ravens, became a staple on the Footballville channel. After Smith’s first semester, Streeter wanted to know which broad occupied the alpha role.
When asked if senior Emeka Egbuka is expected to be a first- or second-round pick in this year’s NFL draft, Smith cautiously but politely agreed. When asked if sophomore Carnell Tate, a five-star prospect in the 2023 recruiting cycle, comes to mind, Smith demurred with a verbal shrug. “I think,” he said to Streeter, who quickly figured out the real answer to his question. Even then, long before Smith’s first real appearance with the Buckeyes, he was a teenager who came out of high school as the No. 1 overall player. Nation was the best receiver on the roster. And schools like Ohio State have made Smith one of the best receivers in college football. Streeter apologized to Smith the next time they saw each other.
“He just started laughing,” Streeter told FOX Sports earlier this fall. “The look on his face was like, ‘No disrespect, but I don’t think there’s anyone better than me.’ And I think he sees it that way too.”
The only question was how quickly it would happen. When Smith traded for Streeter in the summer, he had already navigated a spring game in which coaches warned him against a peripheral role. While preparing for the April showcase, Smith called his father to express some disappointment that he would not be featured more prominently. Especially considering that the event will be broadcast on national television for the first time. This situation led Hartline to contact Chris Smith directly to spread the word about what could be a tricky situation for a player with such high expectations, without knowing that Smith himself had already shared the news with his parents.
But there was no pushback from the family about Ohio State’s plan to ease Smith into the fight. Considering his incredible coaching of wide receivers in recent years, which includes four first-round picks in the past three drafts alone, there’s no question about how Hartline will approach Smith’s development. Chris Smith reminded his son to trust his coaching staff and maximize his production based on how many passes are thrown. It was the same advice he gave Smith during his youth football days when the Ravens had more than a dozen future Division I players on their roster, and again when he starred at powerhouse Chaminade-Madonna College Preparatory School in Hollywood, Florida. The hype reached such fanatical levels that coach Dameon Jones considered hiring police officers to protect his star players during the playoffs.
“There might have been one time where JJ called for the ball because a guy in front of him was swearing, but other times, it wasn’t like that,” Jones told FOX Sports earlier this fall. .It was the strangest thing. You are the best player in this country. You may be an arrogant mother—.
The same was true during his time at Ohio State, and Kelly confirmed Wednesday evening that Smith did not make any demands during his record-setting freshman season. But he made a request to Hartline after the team’s crushing loss to Michigan. Smith told Hartline that he “wanted to be challenged” during the weeks of practice ahead of the opening matchup against Tennessee. Tennessee ended up recording six catches, 103 yards and two scores at the expense of the second-team All-American cornerback. Jemord McCoy. It’s almost as if the extremely polite Smith is acting like a diva wide receiver.
But that doesn’t mean Smith isn’t afraid to speak his mind and pour out his confidence to the world, and that’s exactly what he did at the Rose Bowl media day event in Los Angeles earlier this week. Smith told reporters that he was “laughing in my head” when Oregon tried to defend him with a single coverage. “I’m letting everyone know right now that if we play Man (coverage) on Wednesday, we’re going to have a chance,” Smith said. And that’s exactly what Ohio State has done over and over again.
When the demolition finally ended (with very few Ducks fans left in the stadium), a swarm of reporters wielding television cameras, boom mics and cell phones engulfed Smith near midfield during postgame interviews with ESPN and the Big Ten Network. The crowd was so dense that an Ohio State spokesman implored security guards wearing earpieces to “keep people away” during the celebration. Later, when Smith came off the stage where the Buckeyes won the Leishman Trophy, he took a seat between offensive linemen Deontae Armstrong and Seth McLaughlin and held a rose stem in his teeth as he sang “Carmen Ohio” with the marching band providing the tune. .
And Ohio’s faithful police captured the scene as Smith attempted to escape through the southeast tunnel. One fan hung a crimson No. 4 jersey from the first row railing and dangled a black sharpie as an enticement, yelling for Smith to sign. The first sign led to the second sign. “Can you autograph this hat for another child?” The same man pleaded, and the second stirred up a frenzy. Suddenly, Smith was scribbling his name on game programs and various memorabilia, and quickly approaching kids were begging for his gear. The security guard was nowhere to be found when a woman wearing cowboy boots and daisy dukes asked Smith if he would autograph her skirt. He did his duty unwaveringly.
“The boy is 19,” a man nearby said in disbelief. “He’s 19!”
And from the night Jeremiah Smith became a bigger star, everyone wanted a token.
Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with a focus on the Big Ten. Follow him on Twitter @Michael_Cohen13.
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