Ryan Day and his staff nearly lost the first Buckeye to win AP Offensive Player of the Year and a Super Bowl in the same season. Jaxon Smith-Njigba once had his eyes locked on Texas programs before Ohio State head coach Brian Hartline and the rest of the staff swooped in.

Smith-Njigba grew up with Texas football in his head even as Ohio State came calling during his high school recruitment. Texas A&M and Oklahoma were the schools he pictured himself at. Texas showed some interest, too. JSN had roots in Texas football from a young age. He explained that Oklahoma and Texas talked with him, but neither showed the same urgency as Ohio State.

“I was able to talk to OU a little bit, Texas a little bit, but it wasn’t like, ‘We want you to come here, like, commit today’, but yeah, I definitely had my mind made up on those two,” JSN said on The Ryan Russillo Show on September 4. “Then out of nowhere, Brian Hartline comes, Mark Pantoni and Coach Day come, and they are like, ‘You know, we want you here, you need to be here.’ After that, I was just like, turn my back on them, and we are going to Ohio.”

Smith-Njigba’s high school career was as legendary as his time in Columbus. He finished with 5,346 receiving yards and 82 touchdowns in 44 games at Rockwall High School in Texas. That includes a breakout senior year in which he caught 104 passes for 2,094 receiving yards and 35 touchdowns.

By his senior year, Smith-Njigba had climbed the national rankings. 247Sports had him as a five-star prospect for the class of 2020, while Rivals ranked him as the No. 28 player in his class. But even before this jump, the wide receiver had already committed to the Buckeyes in November 2018.

Brian Hartline, the wide receivers coach at the time, built a close relationship with Smith-Njigba during his recruitment. He visited him multiple times at Rockwall High to sell him the Ohio State pipeline for wide receivers. After a visit to Columbus for a game in the fall of 2018, JSN decided to play college football for Ryan Day.

During his senior year, the commitment was challenged by in-state schools like Texas and Texas A&M. However, JSN remained loyal to Hartline and the Buckeyes and signed his National Letter of Intent on December 18, 2019. 

Smith-Njigba played three seasons at Ohio State from 2020 to 2022 and appeared in 23 games. His sophomore season was the turning point of his career. In 13 games, he had 95 receptions, 1,606 yards, and nine touchdowns. 

He set Ohio State single-season records for receptions and receiving yards. JSN also set school single-game marks with 15 catches twice and 347 yards in the 2022 Rose Bowl, which earned him the Rose Bowl Offensive MVP. 

A hamstring injury limited him to three games in 2022. He shut it down in December to get ready for the draft. The player Ohio State almost lost turned into one of the program’s biggest NFL success stories. 

From Ohio State to the highest-paid receiver

Smith-Njigba left after the 2022 season and entered the 2023 NFL Draft. The Seattle Seahawks took him 20th overall, the first receiver selected that year.

In 2023, he played all 17 games with 63 catches for 628 yards and four touchdowns. In 2024, he became a full-time starter with 100 receptions, 1,130 yards, and six touchdowns, plus his first Pro Bowl. 

Then, in the 2025 season, he had 119 receptions, 1,793 yards (leading the NFL), and 10 touchdowns. He earned unanimous first-team All-Pro honors and AP Offensive Player of the Year.

Seattle won Super Bowl LX over New England in Smith-Njigba’s third NFL season. He is the first Buckeye to win AP Offensive Player of the Year and a Super Bowl in the same season. 

On March 23, 2026, he signed a four-year, $168.6 million extension with the Seahawks. The deal made him the highest-paid wide receiver in NFL history at the time by average annual value and total contract value. 

“He’s a foundational piece, he’s a cornerstone of our team. … The sky’s the limit. … He’s already a leader on our team and will be for a long time,” Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald said at the contract-extension press conference on March 26, 2026. “I think it’s unique to see that type of dominating performance consistently, but also the humility… what type of teammate he is.”

Hartline’s recruiting run has produced first-round receivers since 2022. Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave in 2022, Smith-Njigba the following year, Marvin Harrison Jr. in 2024, Emeka Egbuka in the next year, and Carnell Tate in 2026. Adding to that, Jeremiah Smith is projected as another in 2027. It’s another thing that Hartline is now coaching at USF.