AUSTIN, Texas — Jeremiah Smith is arguably the best player in college football, Texas Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian said Monday, five days before Texas hosts the top-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. Sarkisian compared the junior receiver’s build to Julio Jones and A.J. Brown during Monday’s press conference.
“I think, one, he garners your attention, and he deserves our attention,” Sarkisian said. “He’s arguably the best player in college football. The challenge is, with him, it’s the size, speed, catch radius. He’s a big, physical guy who can cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time. It doesn’t always look like it, but it almost feels like it. You can feel his presence on the field.”
“When you just talk about body structure, this guy looks like Julio Jones, this guy looks like A.J. Brown physically,” Sarkisian continued. “He can cover ground and then, because he’s so strong, 50-50 catches are difficult with him. You have to have a plan. But I think like anything when you have a plan against somebody like him, you can’t just throw all fastballs. As good as a fastball as you have, if that’s all you got, sooner or later you’re gonna hit it. We’ve got to be able to mix our pitches up in how we defend him and how we defend the scheme because Arthur and Ryan believe in running the ball. They’ve got a good runner and a good O-line, they’ve got other weapons.”
“We’ve got to be diligent in our ability to throw different pitches and then be sound in the backend to make sure that we’re aware of where No. 4 is,” Sarkisian added. “He garners that. Not every game do you go into it where you say, ‘Hey, we need to know where this guy is on every snap.’ We better know where No. 4 is on every snap.”
Smith caught 8 passes for 151 yards and 2 touchdowns in the first half of Ohio State’s 56-3 win over Ball State on Sept. 5 and did not play after halftime. His first touchdown was a 48-yard one-handed catch in the end zone off a play-action pass. The second came from 3 yards out, in the back of the end zone, with 10 seconds left in the half.
Smith has 2,709 career receiving yards, seventh in Ohio State history, and 29 touchdown catches, fifth in school history. He caught 76 passes for 1,315 yards and 15 touchdowns as a freshman in 2024. Last season he caught 87 passes for 1,243 yards and 12 touchdowns, was named a unanimous All-American, and finished sixth in Heisman Trophy voting.
Steve Sarkisian Says Ohio State Reloaded Around Jeremiah Smith
Ryan Day hired Matt Patricia to run Ohio State’s defense last season and added Arthur Smith on offense this year, giving the Buckeyes two former NFL head coaches calling plays.
“And they’ve reloaded. They’re extremely talented,” Sarkisian explained. “I think we all know who Jeremiah Smith is offensively, but Julian Sayin is a heck of a player, Bo Jackson running the ball, they’ve got a veteran O-line, they’ve added some receivers to the mix, losing Carnell Tate.”
Julian Sayin completed 21-of-25 passes for 320 yards and 3 touchdowns against Ball State before Ohio State pulled him early in the third quarter. Sayin finished fourth in Heisman voting last season and was named Big Ten Freshman of the Year. Bo Jackson broke a 65-yard touchdown run in the third quarter Saturday.
Ohio State filled the vacancy left by Carnell Tate with a receiver from UTSA. Texas made its own portal additions, among them Cam Coleman, who caught 3 passes for 70 yards and 2 touchdowns in his Longhorns debut.
“I think for both of us it was probably helpful to get a game under our belt so they could get a sense and a feel for how each feel,” Sarkisian said. “On the flip side, we get a chance to kind of see those guys play in that uniform and not that everybody is gonna be deployed the same Saturday. I promise you what they ran last week ain’t what we’re getting Saturday night, and it could probably be said the other way around. But in the end, it’s more of seeing the personnel and what some of the new faces look like.”
Jeremiah Smith Has 7 Catches For 46 Yards In Two Games Against Texas
Texas has held Smith to 7 receptions for 46 yards across two meetings. Smith caught 1 pass for 3 yards in the College Football Playoff semifinal at AT&T Stadium on Jan. 10, 2025, a 28-14 Ohio State win. In the season opener at Ohio Stadium on Aug. 30, 2025, he caught 6 passes for 43 yards on 59 snaps, according to Ohio State, and the Buckeyes won 14-7.
Sarkisian spent the 2017 and 2018 seasons as offensive coordinator of the Atlanta Falcons, where Jones was his top receiver. Jones was the sixth overall pick in the 2011 draft and finished a 13-year career with 914 receptions for 13,703 yards and 66 touchdowns. He was a seven-time Pro Bowl selection and a two-time first-team All-Pro. Brown was the 51st overall pick in the 2019 draft out of Ole Miss.
Texas opened its season with a 59-7 win over Texas State on Saturday afternoon before 102,738 at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. Arch Manning completed 20-of-27 passes for 305 yards and 4 touchdowns with 1 interception before Texas pulled him in the third quarter. The Longhorns went 10-3 last season, 6-2 in the SEC, and opened this year fifth in the AP Top 25.
Kickoff is set for 6:30 p.m. CT on Saturday on ABC. ESPN’s College GameDay broadcasts from the Texas campus from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. CT. Ohio State leads the series 3-2 and has won each of the last two meetings.
