“You know, like we said from the jump, he is a generational talent, he’s a special player.” Imagine hopping onto the gridiron in your freshman season, Cris Carter’s 40-year record, then going on to completely redefine what it means to be “NFL ready” at just 19 years old. Ryan Day’s comment on Jeremiah Smith being “a generational talent” wasn’t something far-fetched. This kid didn’t just break records; he rewrote Ohio State’s DNA, becoming the first WR ever to claim Big Ten Freshman AND Receiver of the Year in the same season. Press coverage? 4.3-speed releases roasted it. Off-coverage? 68% contested-catch dominance bullied it. This wasn’t a debut. It was a hostile takeover.

Yet while Smith spent his offseason evolving into a coverage-decoding cyborg, Rivals.com reduced his transformation to… a haircut. Their viral side-by-side post—touting “How🤯💪” while showcasing only longer dreads—ignited quite the reaction from the Buckeyes Nation. “Before and before ahh post,” was all one fan could say, and we can’t even blame them for thinking so. We tried out every Photoshop trick on our playbook to find what “transformation” Rivals were talking about, only to end up with Smith’s longer dreadlocks and maybe a bit more muscle definition. Well, follicle fixation aside, what we should focus on is Smith’s offseason engineering, a tangible metamorphosis that could terrify defensive coordinators.

The 19-year-old added 5+ lbs of muscle to combat double-teams—a necessity after Emeka Egbuka’s departure—while refining his route tree under Brian Hartline’s tutelage to exploit coverage blind spots. The “freak in the weight room” is well on his way to break Marvin Harrison Jr.’s transformation record in just 2 years.

It ain’t no wonder that Harrison called Smith the “LeBron James of football.” This 6’3” phenom is simply “built differently than everybody else.” But circling back to what started this “transformation” debate, the fans who watch every snap saw through the Rivals’ illusion, exposing the gap between viral hype and actual growth in real-time.

Buckeyes Nation calls out the obvious

“His hair got a lil longer,” a fan quickly pointed out. We have been saying the same thing. This post, instead of hinging on Smith’s offseason development, simply focuses on hairstyle change and calls it a day by marking it “transformation”. Wild.

Another fan added, “Wdym how? Bro got into a high-level university, is eating good, and lifting good.” If we are to go by the muscle definition, then this is true. Smith has changed quite a bit, and sources say that his new calorie plan consists of a 5,200/day plan. But then again, another fan called this claim out by stating, “If I’m honest, he looks the same except for maybe more hair and maybe a bit more muscle definition, but that could also be an illusion created by shadows from the different lighting.”

Quite true. Both pictures are in completely different settings, and light tends to create a sort of illusion. Finally, one fan wrote, “They handed him the black stripe and said just pose with it. 😂😅😅😅” Now this hints back to OSU’s black stripe tradition (rookie rite of passage), but then again, Smith’s stripe removal already happened in 2024—making the prop especially tone-deaf.