He is him.
There has been so much said about the greatness of Jeremiah Smith that it has become hard to say much else. One of one. Generational. Whatever phrase anyone wants to use, we have reached the point where none of them feel particularly exaggerated anymore.
Nor does any of them quite capture the full scope of what Jeremiah Smith is.
But no matter what you call him, one thing is no longer in dispute: Jeremiah Smith is the greatest wide receiver in Ohio State history.
That is a remarkable thing to say considering the school we are talking about. Ohio State has produced greats such as Cris Carter, David Boston, Michael Jenkins, Santonio Holmes, Ted Ginn Jr., Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Emeka Egbuka and Marvin Harrison Jr. The list goes on, and that is exactly what makes Smith’s place above all of them so incredible.
Saturday at Iowa, Smith caught 11 passes for 206 yards and two touchdowns. In the process, he became Ohio State’s career leader in receptions and receiving touchdowns. He had already broken the school’s career receiving-yardage record earlier this season.
That means he now owns all three major career receiving records at Ohio State, which should probably end the argument right there.
The numbers are absurd on their own, but what makes Smith so different is how little effort it seems to take for him to produce them. A week after catching 12 passes for 217 yards and four touchdowns against Illinois, he followed it up with another 200-yard game at Kinnick Stadium against an Iowa defense that entered Saturday as one of the best in the country.
There is no easy way to defend him because there is no weakness to attack. Smith has the size to bully defensive backs, the speed to run past them, the hands to win contested catches and the body control to make difficult catches look routine. He can beat single coverage, and throwing extra defenders at him only seems to piss him off, if not delay the inevitable.
We are no longer asking whether Smith is one of the best receivers Ohio State has ever had. We are no longer wondering whether he might eventually own the record book. He already does.
The only thing left to determine is how far he pushes those records before he leaves Columbus.
That is where the timing of all this becomes almost impossible to comprehend. Smith is still only a junior and not even halfway through the season. Most players who own career records did so after exhausting nearly every available snap of their college careers (though in fairness, plenty of players leave before their senior year). Smith has already cleared the field with a lot of football still in front of him. Well, a lot of season anyway.
Ohio State’s record book is not filled with ordinary names. It is filled with players who became All-Americans, first-round draft picks and NFL stars. Smith has not simply passed one or two of them. He has passed all of them in the categories that define the position.
And somehow, none of this feels surprising anymore.
That may be the strongest argument for how good he really is. A 200-yard receiving game should feel outrageous. Back-to-back 200-yard games should feel historic — and they are. Breaking multiple career records in the same afternoon should feel bonkers.
With Smith, it just feels like Saturday.
That is what happens when a player establishes a standard so high that extraordinary performances become expected. We are watching one of the rare athletes whose talent was hyped almost beyond reason before he ever played a college game, and then somehow turned out to be even better than advertised.
There will be plenty of time later to argue about where Smith belongs among the greatest receivers in college football history. There will be Heisman conversations, NFL Draft conversations and eventually debates about what he becomes at the next level.
But the Ohio State question is settled.
At a school with the greatest wide receiver tradition in college football, Jeremiah Smith now stands alone.
He is him.
