What Does A 'Bigger, Stronger, Faster' Jeremiah Smith Mean For Ohio State?

A year ago, Ohio State head coach Ryan Day would have to stop himself when talking about Jeremiah Smith. He would catch himself and pull back a bit so as not to put too many expectations on a true freshman.

Then Smith went out and had the single greatest freshman season in Ohio State football history.

Smith’s 1,315 yards receiving and 15 touchdown catches last year made him an instant college football star who is now known far and wide.

Which is why the old coaching adage that ‘the biggest jump a player makes is between his freshman and sophomore season’ seems mathematically impossible to apply to Jeremiah Smith.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday at Big Ten Media Days, Ryan Day was asked about Smith and what he could be as a sophomore.

“He’s gotten bigger and stronger and faster than he was last year,” Day said. “He was at workouts the other day, and [strength coach] Mick [Marotti] constantly says during our warmups he’s the first guy every time we run through and we’re warming up. The first guy, every single time. He’s just set such a standard, and you don’t need to motivate Jeremiah. What he did as a freshman speaks for itself.”

Smith is planning to play this season around 223 pounds after being listed at 215 pounds last year. He is clearly one of the fastest players on the team as well, which makes his 6-foot-3 frame stand out even more.

But it’s not just the physical aspects of Smith’s game that have improved. The mental side and the technical side are a year older as well.

“Bigger, faster, stronger, more mature, seeing things faster. Transitioning in and out of breaks,” Day said. “Everything’s going to slow down for him in this next year. You know, we think about the first half of the season for Jeremiah, he did some great things, but it was all moving fast for him. And then the second half, obviously, you saw it slow down for him and speed up for everybody else. So I think just more of a complete season doing that.”

Now that that Jeremiah Smith may be the most known quantity in college football, the defensive focus on him will continue to be fierce. People will point to the way Texas double-teamed him for most of last year’s College Football Playoff Semifinal in the Cotton Bowl, which led to a season-low one catch for three yards.

That defensive approach slowed down Smith, but it also freed up receiver Carnell Tate for a career-high seven catches. The Buckeye tight ends also combined for seven catches, while the Buckeye running backs combined for six.

But if a defense does choose to approach things with a Texas-sized gameplan, the Buckeyes still have to find ways to target Smith more than the three times they did in the Cotton Bowl.

“Well, you have to be creative about how you get him the ball,” Day said. “But he also is going to make everybody better on that field because he’s going to draw a lot of attention. So it’s going to be important for the quarterback to recognize that and then use the other weapons that he has. The run game will be very important. But also, you’re talking about Carnell Tate and Brandon Inniss and Bryson Rodgers. Our tight ends are in a good place right now. Our running backs can hurt you out of the backfield. You saw what TreVeyon [Henderson] and Quinshon [Judkins] did last year.”

Day and offensive coordinator Brian Hartline must take advantage of knowing where a defense will be focused. Day called that knowledge “a weapon.” It opens the rest of the field for a quarterback who will have plenty of ammunition with which to arm that weapon.

“I think it’s the quarterback’s job to recognize,” Day said. “Like, there’s times where we’re going to design something for Jeremiah in particular. There’s other times where we just have to go through the read and figure out where the read takes us and then force teams to balance up a little bit. So I think that that’s really the bottom line.”

The other bottom line is that defenses weren’t exactly caught off guard by Smith a year ago. He wasn’t invisible. Defenses did key on him and he still made plays. And now that he’s bigger, faster, and stronger, he’s more equipped to handle whatever a defense throws at him.

And as Ryan Day alluded to on Tuesday, that’s very good news for the Buckeyes.

“At his age,” Day said, “he’s further along than anybody I’ve ever been around.”