After Thursday night, is future Ohio State wide receiver Jeremiah Smith the No. 1 player in the nation?

Ohio State football commit Jeremiah Smith was tremendous again on Thursday night.

It’s time to have a real conversation that Ohio State football commit Jeremiah Smith might be the top recruit in the nation. The future Buckeyes wide receiver is turning in big performance after big performance.

And, after Thursday night, Smith has had yet another big performance in a battle of two teams ranked in the USA TODAY HSS Super 25 football rankings.

A class of 2024 recruit, Smith was tremendous on Thursday night for No. 3 Chaminade (Holywood, Florida) in a 31-28 win over No. 5 Miami Central (Miami, Florida).

The five-star wide receiver had two touchdown catches including a spectacular one-handed grab where he showed incredible coordination and body control.

It is hard to not begin thinking of Smith as possibly the top recruit in the nation. Not only are his statistics gaudy (he came into the game with 516 receiving yards and seven touchdowns in the season’s first four games) but he is consistently making big plays.

These are the kind of plays that project well to the Big Ten and Ohio State next year.

 

Smith isn’t simply overpowering opposition, as top recruits often do at this level. He is playing at a different level with uncontested catches but also repeated instances of battling for balls and coming down with clutch catches.

He is using the entirety of his 6-foot-3, 200-pound frame as well as his great length to make the kind of catches that he will need to make on Saturdays next fall.

A consensus five-star recruit, three recruiting services have Smith as the second-best player in the nation. There is only one outlier as ESPN has Smith as the ninth-best recruit in this class.

But if Smith hasn’t already made a convincing case, he could very well be the No. 1 recruit in the nation by the time signing day rolls around.