Jaxon Smith-Njigba revealed on Thursday that had he been recruited by any Texas team, he would have likely stayed home.
If it weren't for injury, Jaxon Smith-Njigba would have chased down several Ohio State receiving records in his time as a Buckeye.
Smith-Njigba, JSN, was a prized recruit coming out of Rockwell, Texas, or so we thought. JSN was a five-star recruit who grew up as a Texas A&M fan before dreaming of playing in the Cotton Bowl against either Texas or Oklahoma. The only thing that any of those schools had to do was just recruit him.
Not that crazy of a concept and truthfully, a major shocker that part of his path to Columbus was a lack of interest from the schools in his state.
As the story goes, there was minor interest from the aforementioned schools, and then Brian Hartline and Ryan Day came down to Texas and told JSN just how much they wanted and needed him.
Then, Texas jumped into the equation, but as he tells Ryen Russillo, it was way too late for him to even consider it.
What a gift the Buckeyes received, but truthfully, it is more of a missed opportunity for the Texas schools. Smith-Njigba's career was quite the roller coaster. The bookends of his three years in Columbus were a 43-yard season and a 49-yard season. The year in the middle was the reason that he was drafted in the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft.
That year was a 95-catch, 1606-yard, and nine-touchdown year that ended with one of the greatest games of all time when he had 15 catches for 347 yards and three touchdowns against the Utah Utes in the 2021 Rose Bowl.
The injuries that Smith-Njigba experienced during his time at Ohio State were truly unfortunate, and if it were a different era, he probably would have had much more production than he did.
His junior year specifically was one that had the fear of a hamstring injury for the entirety of the season. He tweaked it early in the year against Notre Dame, and then it just lingered all year long. He couldn't risk his future draft prospects, so he stayed on the shelf all year.
Smith-Njigba has shown early in his NFL career that he has everything that an elite wide receiver could ever want except for his size. He's an elite route runner; he has rare speed and quickness, and he has incredible hands that are there for every catch.
The Buckeyes are thanking their lucky stars that no one in the state of Texas gave Smith-Njigba the light of day. So, the Buckeyes went and grabbed one of the best wide receivers available in the 2020 recruiting class.
