Jeremiah Smith is the biggest piece of Ohio State Buckeyes news on the board this week, and it has nothing to do with Saturday's scoreboard. It's about a sophomore wideout who scouts are floating as a legitimate No. 1 overall pick in the 2027 NFL draft, which would be the first time a receiver has gone first since 1996.
That gap matters more than it sounds. Receivers almost never go first overall anymore, not because the position stopped producing stars, but because the draft has reorganized itself around quarterbacks and the players who get to them. Teams that pick first are usually teams that need a franchise passer or an edge rusher who can wreck one. A receiver breaking that pattern is the exception, not the rule, and the fact that Smith is even part of the conversation says something about how scouts view him relative to his position.
how rare is a receiver going no. 1 overall
checked the almanac on this one. keyshawn johnson went first overall to the jets in 1996. before him, irving fryar went first to new england in 1984. that's the whole recent club. receivers simply do not sit at the top of draft boards, which is exactly why a sophomore doing it right now reads as a story, not a stat line.
The backdrop makes it stranger still. Mel Kiper's big board for the 2027 class reportedly has seven quarterbacks in the top 25, a quarterback-saturated crop that would normally bury a non-passer at the top of draft boards even further. For Smith's name to be in the same breath as the No. 1 pick inside that kind of class is the detail that actually separates hype from substance.
what's next for jeremiah smith and ohio state
Here's where I have to be straight with you: the specific player comps and the team-fit speculation tied to Smith haven't been nailed down in what's crossed my desk, so I'm not going to pretend I've got a list of franchises circled. What I do know is the broader shape of where Ohio State sits right now. The program is projected inside the 12-team playoff field entering Week 9 per the latest playoff predictor, which means Smith's sophomore season is playing out with stakes attached, not just stat-padding in a lost year. There's also been chatter out of Columbus about the Buckeyes leaning on a backup plan at quarterback this season, which, if anything, only raises the degree of difficulty on Smith's workload and makes the tape he's putting up more impressive, not less.
What happens from here is straightforward on paper and complicated in practice. Smith finishes his sophomore year, the scouting community spends the offseason stress-testing the generational label against a full season of film, and the 2027 cycle starts building its own board in earnest. The history says this almost never happens. The reporting says it might. I'll be watching how the rest of his tape holds up against that history before I buy all the way in.
