Jeremiah Smith

Smith grew up in Miami Gardens, Florida, and didn't make his youth football team at age seven — a cut he's called the moment that changed him: 'I was just a whole different type of person from that day forward... it just made a kid more hungry.' His father, Chris, who owns a moving company and a cleaning business in South Florida, spent countless hours training with him afterward, and Smith became the top-ranked wide receiver recruit of the modern recruiting-rankings era. Ohio State has since fought to keep him — he says he turned down a reported eight-figure NIL offer from another program to stay and chase a title with the Buckeyes — and his younger brother Angelo has since committed to Ohio State too, extending the family's ties to the program.