{"id":101778,"date":"2025-07-29T10:02:19","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T10:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/101778\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T10:02:19","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T10:02:19","slug":"joel-klatt-compares-jeremiah-smith-to-adrian-peterson-top-wrs-in-nfl-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/101778\/","title":{"rendered":"Joel Klatt compares Jeremiah Smith to Adrian Peterson, top WRs in NFL history"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heading into the 2025 season, the Ohio State Buckeyes<\/strong><\/a> are looking to repeat as national champions. To do that, the Buckeyes are going to rely on star wide receiver Jeremiah Smith<\/a><\/strong>. <\/p>\n

College football analyst Joel Klatt<\/strong> praised Jeremiah Smith on The Joel Klatt Show. There, he called him the best player in the country, even comparing him to a bevy of NFL stars. That included running back Adrian Peterson<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best player in college football for next year,\u201d Joel Klatt said<\/a>. \u201cI think we can all say this together, by the way, is Jeremiah Smith. The wide receiver for Ohio State.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeremiah Smith came to Ohio State as a five-star recruit in the Class of 2024<\/a> and was the top-ranked recruit overall that cycle. He burst onto the scene with 76 receptions for 1,315 yards and 15 touchdowns. That prompted Klatt to compare him to former Oklahoma<\/strong><\/a> running back Adrian Peterson, who are the two players he thinks could\u2019ve skipped college entirely.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever seen anything like this. I played against Adrian Peterson when he was a true freshman at Oklahoma. Those are the only two guys that I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d Klatt said. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve been around this sport my entire life, those are the only two guys that I\u2019ve ever seen where I\u2019m like, yeah, they could have played, and not only played but succeeded in the National Football League right away out of high school. And Smith was one of those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeremiah Smith, unsurprisingly, received numerous honors over the course of the season. He\u2019d be named a Freshman All-American and a First-Team All-American, and was an All-Big Ten selection. On the way, he\u2019d help the Buckeyes win a national championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery rarely, very rarely do we see a player that comes in with all the hype of Smith, number one player in the country,\u201d Klatt said. \u201cSo on and so forth, and then he doesn\u2019t just live up to that, but he exceeds those expectations. He was the best player on the field at all times last year. It didn\u2019t matter who they were playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joel Klatt would return to comparing Jeremiah Smith to NFL legends. Ultimately, however, he believes that Smith has a chance to become one of the legends of the game, in the same tier as Randy Moss<\/a><\/strong> or Jerry Rice<\/a><\/strong>. <\/p>\n

\u201cTrying to go back and like what\u2019s the comp? Is it Megatron [Calvin Johnson]<\/a><\/strong>? And it\u2019s like, well, Jeremiah is more athletic than Megatron. Is it Julio Jones<\/a><\/strong>? And I\u2019m like, gosh, Jeremiah\u2019s more fluid than Julio. It\u2019s like, is it Randy [Moss]? Well, you can\u2019t do that because Moss is Moss and [Jerry] Rice and Moss are at the top. For the first time in my career, there is a player that I believe could join that echelon at some point, and that\u2019s this player,\u201d Klatt said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think that we need to, collectively, as a college football community, and I understand that we are tribal in this community. We hate the things that others have, but I don\u2019t care. Unless you\u2019re a Michigan<\/strong><\/a> fan and you just can\u2019t, I want us to enjoy for the next couple of years, getting to watch this guy play college football because that\u2019s what I\u2019m gonna do. He\u2019s the best college football player I\u2019ve ever seen\u2026 He\u2019s got the talent to be one of the best of all time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryan Day raves about how Jeremiah Smith impacts Ohio State program<\/p>\n

Jeremiah Smith has made his presence felt on and off the field for the Ohio State program. That presence is something that head coach Ryan Day<\/a><\/strong> recently praised at Big Ten Media Days.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at him. You\u2019ve seen where he\u2019s gotten bigger and stronger and faster than he was last year. He was at workouts the other day, and Mick [Mickey Marotti] constantly says during our warmups, he\u2019s the first guy every time we run through. The first guy. Every single time. He just sets such a standard,\u201d Day said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t need to motivate Jeremiah. What he did as a freshman speaks for itself. Like you said, he may not be an older guy. He may not be really vocal in terms of his leadership. But what he does on the field speaks for itself. The work ethic he\u2019s brought into this year has been exceptional, and I think that deserves an opportunity to be here today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heading into the 2025 season, the Ohio State Buckeyes are looking to repeat as national champions. To do…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":101779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[66174,1318,6872,1317,1315,1316,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-101778","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-adrian-peterson-04-palestine","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-jeremiah-smith-24-chaminade-madonna-prep","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-football","13":"tag-ncaafootball","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114935951701010329","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}