When in Doubt, Throw it to Jeremiah Smith on Saturday Night

The Ohio State Buckeyes have the cards stacked against them on Saturday night out west in Los Angeles. They enter the game against the USC Trojans without their starting quarterback for the first time in a long time.

Julian Sayin is likely done for the season, and his replacement is scheduled to be Luke Fahey, a true freshman who has thrown for just 203 yards in his young career.

The positive is that Fahey got an entire bye week to get his feet under him and prepare him for the opportunity to start for the Buckeyes on Saturday night. There will be a lot of variables and adversity that come his way on Saturday night, but one thing that is on his side is Jeremiah Smith.

Smith is as reliable as your rent payment coming every month. 

Simply put, he is just so good at football. There are not many people or prospects who are truly unguardable; he is one of them.

There is nothing that anyone can do to put a stop to number four, and when he wants to get off for anything, he is going to. Good luck trying to stop it. 

For Fahey on Saturday night, he is going to have to draw the balance of not just throwing the ball to him every single time he drops back. It will be very tempting to do that, and his gravitational pull is going to be felt.

However, if it gets to a point when it gets really tough for the Buckeyes, smashing the No. 4 button is a hard solution to argue. 

It's a fine line that he has to balance, and it will certainly help early on in the game if Ryan Day and Arthur Smith can draw up a couple of easy completions for Fahey to Smith to get him going.

The flip side of the coin is also very true. If I am the USC defense, I'm going to do everything in my power to take Smith away and force Fahey to play quarterback across the rest of the field. 

Force him to get through progressions, reset his feet to get to options two, three, and four in his progressions, and make him consistently have to make very good and quick decisions. 

That is what is going to be on the other side, but also, if Jeremiah is double covered, he is still open. Triple coverage is probably a bit of a stretch, but there will be times on Saturday night when Fahey can just throw one up to Smith, and he will come down with it.

He is a true superhuman wide receiver, and he will be key to the Buckeyes escaping with a win and doing that consistently throughout the rest of the year.