Joel Klatt reveals he argued with ‘possibly members of the staff’ at Ohio State to throw to Jeremiah Smith more

Coming into the season, the Ohio State Buckeyes knew they had a special player in freshman wide receiver Jeremiah Smith. Still, there were times in the regular season when he didn’t get as many touches as analyst Joel Klatt believes he should have been getting.

Klatt even explained, while making an appearance on Andy & Ari On3, that he had conversations with members of the Ohio State staff where he argued that they needed to throw the ball to Smith even more than they had been in the regular season.

“It didn’t surprise me as much as like a confirmation of the things I had thought were there,” Joel Klatt said. “Probably TMI here, but there were arguments that I had with possibly members of the staff. Rather than going down that rabbit hole, I will tell you.”

At that point, Staples cut in to joke that the arguments were over throwing to Smith more than they had been at times during the regular season, only for Klatt to confirm that’s what they were about.

“Correct,” Klatt said. “Correct.”

Jeremiah Smith made his impact felt throughout the regular season. However, there would be occasional games where he got less attention in the offensive scheme than others, with the most notable of those coming in the Michigan loss when Smith caught just five passes for 35 yards. In three regular season games, he had three catches or less.

However, Ohio State began dominating in the first couple of rounds of the College Football Playoff in large part because they fed the ball to Smith. Between the Tennessee and the Oregon games, he had 13 receptions for 290 yards and four touchdowns.

At that point, Wasserman joked that Klatt helped them figure it out. However, that wasn’t the case because of the timing of the conversations. Instead, they had to learn their lesson in the Michigan loss first.

“Well, no. Because that was before the Michigan game. Before, when they didn’t, so, my thought on Jeremiah Smith is this, and it will build into kind of my answer about the overall team. He’s one of the only, if not the only, wide receiver I’ve personally covered that is a completely regardless wide receiver. You throw to him regardless of the coverage. Not many guys are like that. You could say, they’ve got a safety over the top. Fine. Run him past the safety,” Klatt said.

“Look at the triple coverage he beat in the Rose Bowl when Will Howard threw him that ball on the right side. That corner. I don’t know if I care what the coverage is with number four. I really don’t. So, that was the gist of that conversation.”

Now, Ohio State will have one more game this season where they’ll likely look to lean on Jeremiah Smith. That’s the National Championship Game on Monday night against Notre Dame.

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