Jeremiah Smith makes Heisman Trophy statement with historic performance in Week 4
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Jeremiah Smith screamed it out loud to the college football world on Saturday afternoon.
The Heisman Trophy is out there for the Ohio State wideout, and he apparently would like to be the person receiving it come December. Smith put on a show in Week 4 in the Buckeyes’ Big Ten opener against Illinois, hauling in a whopping 12 passes for 217 yards and 4 touchdowns in No. 7 Ohio State’s 42-19 victory over the Fighting Illini.
Smith helped the Buckeyes improve to 3-1, and it was a solid home victory for Ohio State to start its Big Ten campaign, but the headline on this Buckeyes victory was centered around the junior from South Florida. He was that sensational, and he set 2 milestones along the way.
We’ll start with the 2nd milestone that Smith hit on Saturday, because it came on his 4th and final touchdown of the afternoon, a 26-yard scoring strike from quarterback Julian Sayin. Smith’s TD early in the 4th quarter tied Ohio State’s all-time receiving touchdown record in a game, and it effectively put the game away.
Here is Smith’s record-tying touchdown catch from Sayin:
Long before he tied a record for a single game, Smith set a record for his career on Saturday, becoming the first Ohio State wide receiver to reach 3,000 receiving yards. And that feat came exactly 1 week after Smith became the all-time leader in receiving yards in Buckeyes history, passing Michael Jenkins.
That’s 3 milestones in 1 week’s time, spanning 2 games. Back to Saturday, when Smith spread out his TD production across the entire game, catching 2 TDs in the first quarter, adding another touchdown catch late in the 2nd quarter and then putting the finishing touches on his day with that 4th-quarter scoring grab that tied the Ohio State all-time record for a game.
Ohio State has designs on winning its 2nd national championship in 3 years, and Smith will no doubt be a big part of that if the Buckeyes do. But Smith also has individual awards ready to claim, and he put his claim on the biggest one in college football with his virtuoso performance on the final Saturday in September.
Smith is fighting a historical uphill battle to win the Heisman as a non-quarterback, but he certainly made an early statement to win the award on Saturday. Here is what the Kalshi market is currently saying about Smith’s chances to capture college football’s most prestigious award despite not being a quarterback:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
