Notre Dame ‘Looking Forward’ To Challenge Of Jeremiah Smith

ATLANTA — One way or another, Ohio State freshman wide receiver Jeremiah Smith expects to get the job done when the Buckeyes play for the national title on Monday.

In the Buckeyes’ 28-14 Cotton Bowl win over Texas last week in the College Football Playoff semifinals, the statistics showed just one catch for three yards for Smith. It was a far cry from the 13 catches for 290 yards and four touchdowns that he put up in Ohio State’s first two College Football Playoff games.

Texas focused their zone defense on stopping Smith, and they did so by bracketing him with a cornerback and a safety. And then sometimes also adding a third defender in the picture. The goal was to force OSU quarterback Will Howard to go anywhere other than Smith’s direction.

It worked, but the Buckeyes still got the win as fellow receivers Carnell Tate and Emeka Egbuka picked up the slack. Smith may not have had the numbers, but he still had a huge impact.

“Being a decoy, opening things up for my teammates, opening up the run game, opening up and getting Carnell and Emeka open. Them guys came in and did their job and capitalized on it for sure,” Smith said on Saturday.

On the season, Smith has 71 receptions for 1,227 yards and 14 touchdowns. The one reception against the Longhorns was his season low by two catches. The success in containing Smith has people wondering if Notre Dame might adjust their aggressive man-to-man coverage and adopt more of the Texas zone.

The feedback from the Fighting Irish players and coaches is that they’re going to stick with what they do and Ohio State and Smith are just gonna have to deal with it.

“We’ve just got to go be violent out there, attack. Nothing’s got to change. Just keep being us. Like whoever we go against, we’re not going to change it for them,” said Notre Dame cornerback Christian Gray. “Just be who we are, be what we are made for, be what we prepared for, and just keep attacking and being violent all the time. Just know It’s going to be a fight every game, and we’re just going to have to finish it.”

For Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman, he knows there’s not just one thing a team can do to defend Jeremiah Smith.

“He’s one of the best receivers I’ve ever seen in the college football game at a young age,” Freeman said. “He’s a dynamic football player. He’s physically a big presence, but he can run and he can catch. You’re going to have to do some different things to try to keep him off balance but also keep the rhythm of the quarterback off balance.”

At this point, changing what got Notre Dame to this game would be an admission to the team that the coaches don’t believe the players are good enough to get the job done. That’s not exactly the kind of confidence a coach is looking to instill in his team.

“We’ve got good players too,” Freeman said. “We’ve got to do what we do. And we’re going to trust our guys to get the job done no matter what we call defensively. I still believe strongly we have to stop the run. We’ve got to do some things defensively to make sure we can stop the run, and we’ve got to be really good in the red zone. And then we’ve just got to do some things to make the quarterback try to think and not keep him in rhythm. It’ll be a difficult challenge, but we’re looking forward to it.”

Whether it’s zone or man, stopping Jeremiah Smith is only part of the problem. Texas held him to one catch for three yards and they’ll be home watching this game on Monday night.

Emeka Egbuka had five catches for 51 yards against the Longhorns and Carnell Tate posted a career-high seven catches for 87 yards.

If Notre Dame chooses to stick with their man coverage, Jeremiah Smith and his teammates welcomes the challenge.

“None of us think we can be covered,” he said. “I mean, we actually talked about this yesterday. If that’s what they do, that’s what they do. We’re just going to go out there, play our game, and show the reason not to play man on man.”

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