PASADENA, Calif. – As the final 10 minutes of a confusingly one-sided College Football Playoff quarterfinal ticked off the clock at Rose Bowl Stadium, Chris Smith shuffled through Row 18 of Section 3 until he reached an aisle. The father of Ohio State’s most famous player – freshman Jeremiah Smith, the most talented wideout in the country – wore a scarlet track suit provided to him by Battle Sports, the football apparel company with which his son had signed an endorsement deal. He pulled the hood over his head as the evening temperatures dipped into the 50s and wrapped a pair of headphones around his ears. Aside from the fact that he sat in the Buckeyes’ family section, which occupied the front rows behind the Ohio State bench, there was nothing to suggest that Chris Smith had any relationship with the sport’s fastest-growing star, What’s offensive MVP. had ended with a 41-21 loss to top-seeded Oregon.

By the time Smith walked off the field alongside his brother Geno Smith Jr., father of Seattle Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith III, the family’s newest prodigy had done his work for the evening. He had already slipped through the formation and turned a short pass from quarterback Will Howard into a galloping 45-yard touchdown on Ohio State’s first possession, stunning the surrounding portion of the Ducks faithful by marching into the end zone, without a defender in sight. He had already leapt up to secure a breathtakingly nimble catch between two defenders along the sideline and landed softly between them for a 29-yard gain. He had already shot through Oregon’s defense for a 43-yard score where no one in the opposing secondary decided to cover him. And he had already caught two consecutive passes midway through the third quarter — first with a hang shake, then with a tiptoe pirouette — to set up a rushing touchdown that dashed any glimmer of hope the pro-Ducks crowd held firmly. All told, Smith’s damage amounted to seven catches for a career-high 187 yards and two touchdowns – a statistic that made his father’s eyes widen as he scanned the box in the final moments of the game.

“I guess (the coaches) got tired of hearing all the noise outside,” Chris Smith told FOX Sports with a mischievous grin and just a hint of sarcasm. “I wanted him to hit 200 yards.”

And he probably would have if Oregon hadn’t fallen to a 34-0 deficit by the 2:59 mark of the second quarter, undercutting what many expected from a thrilling rematch between two teams beaten by only one The only difference between them was the point when they fought in mid-October. That night, Smith caught nine passes for 100 yards and a touchdown in a 32-31 loss to Oregon, with his offensive pass interference proving quite costly in the closing moments. He rushed for 118 yards in the first quarter alone on Wednesday night, a stunning performance that prompted Oregon head coach Dan Lanning to call Smith “NFL ready” two full years before he could declare for the draft. Offensive coordinator Chip Kelly went even further when he stated that Smith “could be a once-in-a-lifetime guy.”

That’s what made the second half of Ohio State’s season so puzzling, as Smith’s commitment seemed to wane. He was targeted a total of 13 times during the loss to Oregon and then never exceeded seven hits in a game until facing the Ducks again on Wednesday night. A good part of the baffled 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.

“We had a bad taste in our mouths after that game,” Smith said. “We just had to come in the next day and just see what the problem was, fix the problems and go out on the field and work. We knew we had to get the ball to the rim, make shots and just win one-on-” A matchup. And that’s exactly what we did today.

Although it’s unlikely he would say it publicly, Smith realized he was the best player in Ohio State’s incredibly talented receiving corps when he returned home to Miami Gardens, Florida, after his first spring drills as a freshman. During that visit, he met local content creator Darrell Streeter, the founder of a popular YouTube account known for documenting grassroots soccer in South Florida. Streeter was someone Smith had been friends with for nearly a decade, ever since videos of his wildly popular youth team – the Miami Gardens Ravens – became a staple of the Footballville channel. When Smith’s first semester was completed, Streeter wanted to know which wideout had the alpha role.

When asked if it was senior Emeka Egbuka, who is expected to be selected in the first or second round in this year’s NFL Draft, Smith cautiously but politely agreed. When asked if it was rising sophomore Carnell Tate, a five-star prospect from the 2023 recruiting cycle, Smith responded with a verbal shrug. “I guess,” he told Streeter, who quickly realized the real answer to his question: back then, long before Smith made his first real appearance for the Buckeyes, the teenager who graduated from high school as the No. 1 overall player Land was the best receiver on the squad. And at a school like Ohio State, Smith was effectively the best receiver 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 anyone is better than me.’ And that’s how he sees it too.

The only question was how quickly it would happen. When Smith had his exchange with Streeter in the summer, he had already had a spring game under his belt in which the coaches warned him about a secondary role. Smith called his father ahead of the show in April and expressed disappointment that he would not be featured more prominently, especially given that the event would be broadcast on national television for the first time. The circumstances led Hartline to reach out directly to Chris Smith, hoping to defuse the situation that might have been delicate for a player with such high expectations, unaware that Smith himself had already informed his parents of the news .

But there was no opposition from the family to Ohio State’s plan to bring Smith into the fray; There’s no doubt about Hartline’s approach to Smith’s development, considering his remarkable experience at wide receiver in recent years, which includes four first-round picks in the last three drafts alone. Chris Smith simply reminded his son to trust the coaching staff and maximize production no matter how many passes came his way. It was the same advice he had given Smith during his youth, when the Ravens’ roster featured more than a dozen future Division I players, and again when he was playing for the powerhouse Chaminade-Madonna College Preparatory School in Hollywood, Florida. played where the hype reached such fanatical proportions that head coach Dameon Jones considered hiring a police officer to protect his star player during the playoffs.

“Maybe JJ asked for the ball one time,” Jones told FOX Sports earlier this fall, “and it was because there was a guy in front of him talking nonsense. But at any other time, no.” . It was the strangest thing ever. You can be an arrogant mother.

The same has been true during his time at Ohio State University, with Kelly confirming Wednesday night that Smith made no demands during a record-breaking freshman season. However, after the team’s stunning loss to Michigan, he turned to Hartline with a request. Smith told Hartline that he “wanted to be challenged” during the weeks of practice before an opening-round game against Tennessee, a team he ultimately crushed for six catches, 103 yards and two scores while sacrificing second-team All-American cornerback fell Jermod McCoy. That’s about as close as the overly polite Smith comes to diva-like wide receiver behavior.

But that doesn’t mean Smith isn’t afraid to speak his mind and show the world some of his confidence, and that’s exactly what he did at Rose Bowl Media Day in Los Angeles earlier this week. Smith told reporters that he was “laughing in his head” when he thought about Oregon trying to defend him with a single coverage. “I’m just letting everyone know that if you play man (coverage) on Wednesday, we’ll try,” Smith said. And that’s exactly what Ohio State has done time and time again.

When the demolition finally ended — there were hardly any Ducks fans left in the stadium by this point — throngs of reporters with television cameras, boom mics and cellphones gathered around Smith near midfield as he conducted postgame interviews with ESPN and Big Ten Network gave. The crowd was so thick that an Ohio State spokesman pleaded with a security guard wearing an earpiece to “keep people away” during the celebratory commotion. Later, as Smith left the stage where the Buckeyes were awarded the Leishman Trophy, he clamped a rose stem between his teeth as he sat down between offensive linemen Deontae Armstrong and Seth McLaughlin to sing “Carmen Ohio” as the Brass band provided the melody.

And then the Ohio State faithful caught Smith trying to escape through the Southeast Tunnel. A fan dangled a scarlet number 4 jersey over the front row railing and shouted for Smith to sign, dangling a black marker as an incentive. The first autograph gave way to a second: “Can you sign this hat for another child?” the same man pleaded – and the second sparked a frenzy. Suddenly, Smith was scribbling his name across game programs and various memorabilia as rapidly approaching children begged for some of his equipment. The security guard was nowhere to be found when a woman in cowboy boots and Daisy Duke jeans asked Smith if he would sign her skirt. He obeyed unwaveringly.

“The boy is 19 years old,” a man nearby said incredulously. “He’s 19 years old!”

And everyone wanted a memento of the night Jeremiah Smith became an even bigger star.

Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball with a focus on the Big Ten for FOX Sports. Follow him on Twitter @Michael_Cohen13.

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