Ohio State Buckeyes star wide receiver Jeremiah Smith dropped a surprising nugget at Big Ten Media Days, revealing that the Alabama Crimson Tide never pursued him during his recruitment despite the program being his childhood dream destination.

Smith, widely considered the top prospect in the 2027 NFL Draft class, was asked if he could have ever seen himself ending up at an SEC school. His answer caught plenty of people off guard.

“Growing up, my dream school was Alabama when Nick Saban was there, but they wasn’t recruiting me,” he said.

Why Alabama passing on Jeremiah Smith is so surprising

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The timeline makes this revelation all the more puzzling. The majority of Smith’s recruitment took place during 2022 and 2023, when Saban was still the head coach of the Crimson Tide. Smith projects as a generational talent at the next level, and a lot of evaluators have compared him directly to Julio Jones, who starred at Alabama before becoming a top pick in the NFL Draft. Smith might go even higher than Jones did.

The geographic element adds another layer. Smith hails from Miami, and South Florida has long been one of Alabama’s most productive recruiting pipelines. The Crimson Tide’s 2020 national championship team featured a secondary built almost entirely from South Florida recruits. For Alabama to overlook a talent like Smith in its own recruiting backyard is difficult to wrap your head around.

Did Alabama simply know it couldn’t win the battle?

There is one plausible explanation. Alabama may have recognized early that Smith was destined for Columbus. Ohio State has quickly become the premier program in the nation when it comes to wide receiver development, and the Buckeyes’ track record of producing NFL pass catchers is difficult for any school to match. If Saban’s staff believed Smith was locked in on Ohio State, they may have chosen not to invest resources in a recruitment they felt they couldn’t win.

That context matters, but it doesn’t fully explain why the Crimson Tide wouldn’t at least make a run at a prospect with Smith’s ceiling. Programs like Alabama rarely concede blue-chip recruits without a fight, especially ones located in a region where they’ve historically dominated.

The bottom line

Whether this was a calculated decision by Saban’s staff or a genuine miss in evaluation, the result speaks for itself. Smith became one of the most dominant players in college football at Ohio State, and he appears well on his way to being the first name called whenever he declares for the NFL Draft. Alabama’s loss was the Buckeyes’ gain — a reminder that even the sport’s most successful programs let big ones get away.