Former 5-star recruit Jeremiah Smith is impressing Ohio State teammates

Jeremiah Smith is certainly off to a strong start to his college career as the former five-star recruit has left quite the impression at Ohio State.

And Smith, a class of 2024 recruit who enrolled at Ohio State in January, had his Buckeyes teammates talking this week at Big Ten Media Days.

Ohio State defensive end Jack Sawyer said that Smith is a special talent. As a five-star coming out of Florida, Smith was being talked about as the top player in the nation in his recruiting class.

ESPN ranked him as the fourth-best recruit in the nation. As a senior at Chaminade-Madonna (Hollywood, Florida) Smith has 90 catches for 1,389 receiving yards and 19 touchdowns.

Sawyer, a former five-star recruit in his own right, has been impressed by what he has seen from the freshman wide receiver. According to On3, Sawyer said that Smith has lived up to the hype.

“That kid is just special, man. That’s the only word I can use to describe him,” Sawyer said according to On3.

“Having been in his shoes, meaning being a five-star recruit and having a lot of hype around him coming in, I was like, ‘Man, I just want to see him practice a couple of times.’ I don’t want him to feel like if he doesn’t play this year or if he doesn’t live up to the hype his freshman year then, you know, but then I saw him for the first time at the first practice. I was like, ‘holy sh-t, this kid’s good’.”

Last season, Sawyer had 48 total tackles and 6.5 sacks. To read the full story from On3 about Sawyer, click here.

Ohio State won an intense and difficult recruiting battle to land Smith, fending off challenges from in-state Florida State and Miami to land one of the nation’s top recruits.