Jeremiah Smith Is the 2027 NFL Draft’s Real No. 1. Nobody Should Be Debating This.
Jeremiah Smith caught 76 passes for 1,315 yards and 15 touchdowns as a freshman. He then won a national championship. Now he is going into his junior season as the No. 1 overall prospect on the Fanspeak consensus 2027 big board, and the debate about whether he should go first overall in April 2027 is not a real debate.
Smith is 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds. He has been clocked in the 4.32 range. He plays like a power forward with corner-route acceleration. Ohio State receiver coaches have quietly said his catch radius grew again this offseason, which is the kind of throwaway line that ends up in scouting reports 18 months later.
The tape is the tape. Watch the Cotton Bowl against Texas. Watch the natty against Notre Dame. Smith won contested balls against future NFL corners, took slants 60 yards, and did it as a true freshman on the biggest stages the sport has to offer.
Julian Sayin knows what he has. The Buckeye quarterback spent all summer telling reporters some version of the same thing: Smith is the difference between a good offense and an unfair one. Sayin’s own draft stock, real as it is, is a story that only exists because Smith gives him a target that beats coverage before the ball leaves his hand.
The quarterback conversation is the only reason there is any No. 1 debate at all. Arch Manning is the sentimental pick if the Longhorns season goes the way Texas fans think it will. Dante Moore at Oregon is another quarterback that some evaluators like at the top. But the NFL has been trending toward taking generational skill players over solid quarterbacks for exactly this reason. Ja’Marr Chase went No. 5 and would go No. 1 today. Marvin Harrison Jr. would have been in that same conversation.
Smith is a level above both.
The concern with taking a receiver first overall is always positional value. That argument is dead in the current NFL. Every offensive coordinator in the league is building around explosive plays, and the receivers who create those plays without needing scheme help are the most valuable non-quarterbacks in football. Smith is that player.
The Ohio State schedule sets him up. Texas in Austin on September 12. Penn State on October 24. Michigan on November 28. Three primetime games where he will be the best player on the field, likely by a wide margin. That is how you protect a No. 1 overall grade.
The scouts already have him locked in. The question now is whether he stays healthy and whether his off-field profile stays as clean as it has been. Both of those bets are safe.
Ohio State plays Grambling in Week 1 as a warm-up, then hits the road to Nashville for Vanderbilt on September 5. Smith should have four scores by the end of that second game.
The 2027 Draft is in Washington, D.C. The commissioner will be reading his name first.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
