Ohio State coach Ryan Day said the quiet part out loud.
He was detailing how he coaches his queen, quarterback Julian Sayin, on the chessboard to assess coverage against his most valuable rook, wide receiver Jeremiah Smith. Like most problems in schematic American football, the equation can be solved with simple math.
“If [Smith is] single-covered, he’s open,” Day said. “If he’s double-covered, he’s sort of open. If he’s triple-covered, he’s covered … somebody’s gotta be open somewhere else.”
That part Day said with the slightest hint of annoyance. I can understand why. If three of the 11 defenders are allotted to one man, someone else is likely running more wide open than F1’s Kimi Antonelli on a push lap for pole. And we all know it’s a sin not to hit the open man — lest the wrath of Coach find you on film and smite thee with punishment for not taking care of the football.
But this is Jeremiah Smith we’re talking about.
Jeremiah Smith enters Ohio State’s Week 6 game against Maryland leading FBS receivers with 823 receiving yards and nine touchdown catches. (Photo by Alex Slitz/Getty Images)
While Smith technically might be covered if there are three men on him mid-route, we’ve seen Sayin throw him the ball anyway, and we’ve seen Smith come down with the rock. It’s as absurd to witness as it is for me to write, and yet it’s the truth. Some of the most outrageous things are.
Most outrageous: Through five games, Smith has put up better receiving numbers than perhaps the best pure wide receiver to ever win the Heisman Trophy.
Jeremiah Smith — the comfortable Heisman frontrunner in Week 6 — already has more receiving yards (823) and receiving touchdowns (nine) on fewer catches (44) than DeVonta Smith had (556 yards, four touchdowns, 45 catches) during his prolific 2020 Heisman campaign.
DeVonta ended 2020 with 117 catches for 1,856 yards with 23 receiving touchdowns in 13 games. Jeremiah is on pace to shatter the numbers DeVonta put up with a 13-0 national championship Alabama team.
Maybe the only caveat I’ll add is DeVonta played the four games of the season with former Alabama wide receiver Jaylen Waddle as the most productive wide out on that team. Before his injury on Oct. 24, 2020, Waddle had produced more yardage (557) on fewer catches (25) than DeVonta did and was my runaway favorite to win the Heisman.
But after Waddle’s injury, DeVonta went from WR1 to WR1-and-only. His production followed suit.
At Ohio State, everyone in Columbus — hell, across the country — knows Jeremiah Smith is the driving force of the receiving game for the Buckeyes. He’s unchallenged as the program’s most prolific and important wide receiver.
Indeed, his arrival to the team dramatically enabled the Buckeyes to win the 2024 national title, and he made the game-clinching catch in the national championship game against Notre Dame to solidify that spot.
He did that again last weekend against a then-No. 14 Iowa program that had one of the best scoring defenses in the entire country when he put up 11 catches for 206 receiving yards with two touchdowns. It was the kind of performance that might bring Heisman voters to the notion that they no longer need to worry about who they’re siding with as the best, most outstanding player in the sport.
I know I’ve seen enough already this season: Smith has been the best player in the sport for two years, and he comfortably still is.
That he did not win the Biletnikoff Award last year — robbing him of the chance to become the trophy’s only two-time winner — is a political travesty. If he does not win the Heisman this year, it won’t be because he doesn’t deserve it. It will be because the folks who quite literally write the history of the sport with their votes are too difficult and obtuse to acknowledge he’s already one of the legends of a sport that dates back to 1869.
That trophy only makes us right when someone reads the history. Lord help us if he doesn’t.
