Jeremiah Smith found out in a meeting room before he could see it on his phone. Ohio State receivers coach Brian Hartline had taken the South Florida job at midnight. By the next morning, he was standing in front of his receivers in Columbus, telling them himself, in a rush before the media reported the story.
"He was pretty banged up over it," Hartline told CBS Sports about Smith's reaction. "It was not great, you know, and it was not great for us either. And so it was just one of those hard things.
I think he knows how much I love him." That was Dec. 3. Over the next 28 days, Ohio State lost the Big Ten Championship Game to an Indiana team that would go on to win the national title and then to Miami in the Cotton Bowl in the largest upset in the history of the College Football Playoff. Smith played the best statistical game of his season that night in Arlington -- seven catches, 157 yards and a touchdown on 60 snaps -- and watched the Hurricanes, his hometown team with several former high school teammates, celebrate at the other end of AT&T Stadium.
Then the phone calls started. With Smith's coach now in Tampa, big programs smelled blood. Smith has said publicly that the market could have paid him $10 million to leave Ohio State this spring.
"It was different types of programs coming at me once [Hartline] left, and once this season was over," Smith said. "But I never really thought about leaving Ohio State. I always wanted to be at Ohio State." Loyalty mattered to Smith more than the money.
Certainly, the payday at Ohio State is already high, but he has at least twice turned down bigger paydays. Three years ago, as the 247Sports Composite's No. 1 overall player, he turned down a lucrative offer from his hometown team, Miami, to remain committed to the Buckeyes. "I'm not acting like there aren't other pressures or other people around him that could have swayed him," Hartline said.
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