By the time Jeremiah Smith was old enough to experience “NCAA Football,” the popular video game series developed by EA Sports, only a handful of iterations remained before production halted during what proved to be an 11-year hiatus. Born on Nov. 29, 2005, Smith’s first exposure to the franchise came with his cousin Geno Smith, a collegiate star at West Virginia in the early 2010s who is now the starting quarterback for the Las Vegas Raiders. Together, the boys would play using Geno Smith’s own high-flying teams from an era when the Mountaineers were loaded with virtual favorites like Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey.

Back then, when he was little more than a gangly elementary schooler, Jeremiah Smith never could have imagined seeing his own face and figure on the cover of a video game sold around the world. Even when he eventually rose to stardom as a youth prodigy in South Florida, where his rise was chronicled for years, the prospect seemed bleak once EA Sports stopped producing the title after “NCAA Football 14” was released on July 9, 2013.

But last summer came the long-awaited, wildly successful reboot of “EA Sports College Football 25,” which has since become the best-selling sports video game in U.S. history, and the launch happened to coincide with the beginning of Smith’s highly anticipated collegiate career. A former No. 1 overall recruit in the 2024 recruiting cycle, Smith exploded onto the national stage with a record-setting freshman campaign that included 76 catches for 1,315 yards and 15 touchdowns — capped, of course, by Ohio State’s dominant run to the national championship in which he reached the end zone five times during the College Football Playoff alone. That he will now enter his sophomore season as one of the best players in the country — not to mention a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate — made Smith an easy choice to grace the cover of this year’s game, “EA Sports College Football 26,” where he will appear with fellow standout receiver Ryan Williams of Alabama, a decision that was announced Tuesday morning. 

“It’s something that you dreamed of,” Smith told me. “But to actually think you would be a cover athlete, and then it actually happened, it’s something crazy for sure.”

Coupled with the game’s impending release in early July, this week’s announcement will launch the soft-spoken and mild-mannered Smith to an even greater level of stardom, though in many ways he’s been residing in the sport’s spotlight for nearly a decade. He and Williams, another age-defying star with 48 receptions totaling 865 yards and eight touchdowns as a 17-year-old freshman for the Crimson Tide, were whisked to California for the cover shoot earlier this year. They met with college football legends and former Heisman Trophy winners like Tim Tebow (Florida) and Reggie Bush (USC), and Smith couldn’t believe that some of the greats whose highlights he’d watched on YouTube were now discussing how much they admired him. It was an experience Smith said he will never forget. 

[Related: Family, community and a desire to be great: Inside Jeremiah Smith’s rise to stardom]

For Smith, whose 20th birthday falls on the same day Ohio State travels to Michigan for this year’s regular-season finale, the list of unforgettable experiences seems to lengthen by the month, dating to his fabled little league career with the Miami Gardens Ravens. He was the main attraction on a team that featured at least nine future Division I skill players, eight of whom played at schools in the Power 4 conferences last season, and routinely drew crowds in excess of 5,000 people — rain or shine. Opponents and adults alike sought his autograph when the Ravens traveled to national tournaments. His youth coach told anyone who would listen that Smith was destined to become the No. 1 wide receiver in the country long before a high school growth spurt transformed Smith’s body into the 6-foot-3, 215-pound machine that ultimately reached the top of the 247Sports Composite rankings regardless of position. Toward the end of Smith’s career at Chaminade-Madonna College Preparatory School in Hollywood, Florida, where he won three consecutive state titles, the lines of “groupies” that formed outside the Lions’ buses were so long that his coach weighed the possibility of hiring a bodyguard to protect Smith.

All of that was before Smith arrived at Ohio State, where he forced his way into the starting lineup by the end of fall camp and promptly unleashed a barrage of one-handed catches that splattered across social media on a weekly basis. He caught five passes for 119 yards and a touchdown in the second game of his career against Western Michigan and hauled in nine passes for 100 yards and a score in a breakout showing at Oregon midway through the season. When the College Football Playoff finally arrived, at which point the Buckeyes began pumping the ball downfield, Smith nearly won the Rose Bowl single-handedly when he made seven catches for 187 yards and two touchdowns to leave the top-seeded Ducks gasping and grasping for air. 

By that point, as Ohio State closed in on its first national title since 2014, Smith couldn’t even enter stores in Columbus without being mobbed by fans. 

“When I want groceries from either Kroger or Target,” Smith said, “I have to get it delivered to my house. It’s crazy. But I guess this is what comes with it. This is my lifestyle now.”

It’s a lifestyle that, as of Tuesday morning, includes being the cover athlete for arguably the most famous sports video game franchise in existence, with fans across the country — and across the globe — aiming to replicate his real-life exploits in EA Sports’ digital universe. They won’t be tasked with expanding Smith’s leadership skills the same way Ohio State’s coaches have challenged their superstar during offseason workouts. Nor will they be sitting in with Smith and offensive coordinator Brian Hartline, the team’s first-year playcaller, for film sessions designed to increase Smith’s understanding of opposing defenses, especially how to handle the bracket coverage he is likely to face again this fall.

It’s all but certain, however, that gamers everywhere will be firing passes in Smith’s direction from either Julian Sayin or Lincoln Kienholz, the two quarterbacks in contention for the Buckeyes’ starting job, while trying to make him the first true receiver to win the Heisman Trophy since former Alabama star DeVonta Smith in 2020. And in real life, where Ohio State is chasing a second consecutive national championship, the human version of Jeremiah Smith might just do the same. 

“I definitely want to win it,” Smith said when asked about a potential Heisman campaign. “But I’m just all about the team first. I just want to win that big one, that national championship. That’s all I really care about.”

“We’ve gotta repeat and win it again.”

Michael Cohen covers college football and college basketball for FOX Sports. Follow him at @Michael_Cohen13.

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