Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith Could Be the NFL Draft’s First No. 1 Receiver Since 1996

Iowa built its whole game plan around one man and still lost the argument. The defense sent a second body toward Jeremiah Smith again and again, and the Ohio State wide receiver kept finding the ball anyway, the way he has since the day he arrived in Columbus.

The question now stapled to his name, whether he can go first overall in the NFL Draft, is usually framed as a verdict on his talent. It is not. On talent, the people paid to grade prospects have nearly stopped arguing. What stands between Smith and the top pick is a habit the league has kept for a generation, and a draft order he cannot touch.

The Saturday that settled the talent debate

Smith caught 11 passes for 206 yards and two touchdowns in a 31-14 win over Iowa that kept the Buckeyes unbeaten, against coverage designed to take him away, ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura reported. The game moved him past Ohio State’s career marks for receptions and receiving touchdowns; PFF called it the completion of a triple crown of the program’s receiving records. His 36 career touchdown catches leave him three short of Braylon Edwards’ Big Ten record of 39, Sports Illustrated’s Buckeyes site noted.

Afterward he spelled out the plan. “You’ve just got to [let] the Heisman voters or whoever it is know that I’m the best player in the country,” Smith said. “I’ve got to be there.” That is the trait that defines him: he treats the case for himself as part of the job, one more route to run clean.

The graders have caught up. PFF ranks him first on its board and declared him “exempt from the stock-up category until further notice.” Pro Football Network has him first too, and its analyst James Fragoza wrote that even if Smith “was only allowed to run Go routes, he’d still be the No. 1 overall pick.” ESPN’s Jordan Reid says Smith could end up with “the highest grade that I’ve ever given out to a receiver.”

Why the best player may not be the first pick

Then Reid put a number on the top-pick question: “I’ll say there’s a 10% chance just because Smith is that good.” The figure is not a knock on Smith. It is a reading of the people who make the pick. The first selection has gone, historically, to a quarterback, an offensive tackle or an edge rusher. Keyshawn Johnson, in 1996, remains the last receiver taken first overall. Calvin Johnson went second. Larry Fitzgerald went third.

Reid’s path to No. 1 runs through the standings, not the tape: a team with no quarterback need lands the top pick, he names the Buccaneers, Chargers and Giants, and takes the best player instead of trading down. A team that does need a passer will have a deep menu: Arch Manning at Texas, Dante Moore at Oregon, Notre Dame’s CJ Carr and Miami’s Darian Mensah, with Texas edge rusher Colin Simmons as the defensive name in the same conversation. PFF moved Carr’s stock up after his latest outing.

The scouting file gives a general manager little to hide behind. Kyle Crabbs’ report for AtoZ Sports lists one relative weakness, change of direction on sharp-angled routes, set against elite vertical speed, physicality at the catch point and an enormous catch radius, and compares him to Julio Jones. It is the kind of note that separates the first pick from the second only in a league already looking for a reason.

A wait the rules imposed

Smith has been ready longer than the calendar allowed. He came out of Chaminade-Madonna in Hollywood, Florida, as the No. 1 overall recruit of the 2024 class in 247Sports’ rankings, then won Big Ten Freshman of the Year, first-team All-America honors and a national championship in his first season. A consensus All-America year followed. The NFL’s rule that a player be three years removed from high school kept him out of the last draft. “I can’t beat the rules … three years or whatever,” he said in the summer of 2025, as Sports Illustrated reported. “But I’m having fun.”

The fun has piled up. Through two seasons he had 163 catches for 2,558 yards and 27 touchdowns, by Pro Football Network’s count, and this fall has already included a 12-catch, 217-yard, four-touchdown day against Illinois that made him only the second Ohio State receiver, after Terry Glenn, with 200 yards and four scores in one game. He becomes eligible for the April 2027 draft once he declares.

If the team on the clock in April does not need a quarterback, a line in the record book that has stood since 1996 ends with one phone call. If it does, the best player on the boards goes second, and Smith gets to spend his rookie season proving that someone guessed wrong.

Tags: NFL Draft, Arch Manning, Jeremiah Smith, Keyshawn Johnson, Ohio State Buckeyes