AUSTIN, Texas — Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said the Longhorns have to know where Jeremiah Smith is on every snap Saturday night, a level of attention he does not give every opponent.
Smith has 7 catches on 13 targets for 46 yards in two career games against Texas. In the other 28 games of his career, the Ohio State Buckeyes receiver has 164 catches on 207 targets for 2,663 yards and 29 touchdowns.
Sarkisian said Ohio State has reloaded on both sides of the ball and still has Julian Sayin at quarterback, Bo Jackson running the football, and a veteran offensive line in front of them.
“I think one, he garners your attention and he deserves our attention,” Sarkisian said at his game-week press conference Monday. “It’s arguably the best player in college football, and 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.”
“Not every game do you go into it where you say, ‘Hey, we need to know where this guy is on every snap,’” Sarkisian continued. “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. He sat the second half.
In last season’s opener in Columbus, Smith had a team-high 6 receptions for 43 yards in a 14-7 Ohio State win. All 6 catches came within 6 yards of the line of scrimmage, and 2 of them came behind it. In the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Cotton Bowl the year before, he had 1 catch for 3 yards.
Steve Sarkisian On The Ohio State Defensive Line
The Texas Longhorns converted 5-of-14 third downs and 1-of-5 fourth downs in a 59-7 win over Texas State on Sept. 5, and Ohio State’s front is the group Sarkisian pointed to when the subject turned to the rematch.
Larry Johnson has coached the Ohio State defensive line since 2014. Sarkisian said the Buckeyes lost veterans off that group and still have players from it.
“Ohio State’s interior defensive line, they’re deep, they’re talented,” Sarkisian said. “Larry Johnson has been there a long, long time. He’s a heck of a coach, and so I know they lost some of what was the veteran guys. They still have some, but they’re good, and they’re a penetrating group. They’re active. They do a good job of collapsing the pocket in the pass game, and they’re stout in the run. So it’s a heck of a challenge.”
Ohio State held Ball State to 120 yards passing and recorded 7 tackles for loss in the opener.
Sarkisian is 0-2 against Ohio State. The Buckeyes won the 2025 Cotton Bowl semifinal 28-14 on the way to a national championship, then opened last season with the 14-7 win in Columbus.
Julian Sayin And Arch Manning Since The 2025 Opener
Sayin made his first college start in that opener and completed 13-of-20 passes for 126 yards and a touchdown. He threw 2 completions of longer than 10 yards downfield in the game.
Against Ball State last week, Sayin was 21-of-25 for 320 yards and 3 touchdowns. Arch Manning went 20-of-27 for 305 yards, 4 touchdowns, and 1 interception against Texas State, and his afternoon ended with 7:55 left in the third quarter.
Sarkisian was asked how much both quarterbacks have changed since they met.
“Pretty drastically different,” Sarkisian said.
Kickoff at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium is set for 6:30 p.m. CT on ABC. Ohio State is No. 1 in the AP Top 25 and Texas is No. 4. Both teams are 1-0.
