Some high school football recruits are destined to play in the NFL.
Jadeveon Clowney, the top pick in the 2014 NFL draft, could have played as an 18-year-old. Dorial Green-Beckham, the top receiver in the 2012 receiving class, screwed up his whole college career with arrests and getting kicked off his team. Even so, he's almost guaranteed to be taken in this year's draft. Some players are too innately talented to fail.
In contrast, lower- and middle-tier recruits have to fight the odds to make it big. Devin Smith was a high three-star/low four-star recruit from Massillon, Ohio, and he could have had a typical, uninteresting career. Instead, he has positioned himself as a surefire draft pick through talent and hard work.
From the beginning, Devin Smith was known as a deep-ball threat. As a freshman, he provided the sweetest moment of Ohio State's otherwise sour 2011 season, hauling in a 40-yard bomb from Braxton Miller to upset Big Ten champion Wisconsin on Homecoming weekend. With 294 receiving yards and four touchdowns, Smith was one of the bright spots in the Buckeyes' maligned passing attack.
When Urban Meyer swept into power, he groused about the lack of playmakers at wide receiver. Devin Smith took another few steps forward in response, catching catching 30 balls for 618 receiving yards and a team-high six touchdowns as a sophomore. He started to pop up on draft boards as a fringe prospect, but he still didn't show any exceptional skill besides speed for the NFL scouts to drool over.
In 2013 his receptions and touchdowns increased to 44 and eight, but his yards per catch dropped five yards (from 20.6 to 15.0). If Smith were to become a solid draft prospect, he needed to return for his senior season and develop as a route runner.
“We played a lot of games where he was faster than the guy he lined up across and again, that’s a gift and a curse,” receivers coach Zach Smith said last March. “If you can just run by a guy over and over again, then eventually you play a guy that you can’t run by, and it exposes your flaw.”
Message received. Devin Smith caught 33 passes for 931 yards and 12 touchdowns in 2014, nearly doubling his yards per catch (from 15.0 to 28.2). He adjusted to Michael Thomas being the featured receiver early in the season, and his numbers improved as the year went on. Over his final four games (Michigan, Wisconsin, Alabama and Oregon), Smith caught fire: he averaged over 40 yards per catch, despite an injury to J.T. Barrett and having little time to develop a rhythm with Cardale Jones. Teams with elite talent knew he was a deep ball threat and still couldn't shut him down; that gave NFL teams reason to take notice.
Smith was invited to the NFL Combine, where he expressed the desire to show teams how he could make an immediate impact as a rookie. Running a 4.42 40-yard dash, reaching 39 inches in vertical jump and ten feet in the broad jump and 4.15 seconds in the shuttle cones impressed the scouts, who also liked some of his route-running abilities.
Of course, Smith still has points of weakness. From NFL.com's draft profile:
Lacks natural, soft hands. Will double catch and corral throws into body. Tries to catch, turn and run before securing the throw. Shows a lack of patience in his routes. Game too heavily reliant upon speed. Must learn to be effective when deep ball is restricted by defense. Thin hips and frame. Play strength is below average. Can be frustrated by physical corners. Gets jostled and distracted when bodied hard down the field. Desire lacking as run blocker. Often taken off field and replaced when Buckeyes wanted to run out of "11" personnel.
While he may still need to improve his pass-catching technique, he can contribute immediately in another area: special teams. Smith's skill set is fantastic as a punt team gunner: as Eleven Warriors' Kyle Jones said, "his ability to make a clean release off the line and get downfield in a hurry is a big reason for the second or third-round grade many pundits have given him for the upcoming NFL draft."
Devin Smith has been rewarded for his hard work with an invitation to the NFL Draft. In general, the NFL only invites people with a serious chance of being taken in the first round of the NFL Draft. In contrast, Dorial Green-Beckham, the can't-miss prospect, was not invited.
If Smith is a first-rounder, he will likely be taken near the end of it. Amari Cooper, Kevin White, DeVante Parker, Breshard Perriman and Jaelen Strong are projected ahead of Smith, but five receivers were taken in the first round of last year's draft and seven in the second round.
Even if his name isn't called in the first round, he won't be waiting much longer. Any team that needs a speedy deep threat and a special teams ace – maybe the Dallas Cowboys, who invited him for a visit on Thursday – will find enormous value in Devin Smith, a player who has worked his tail off to be in this position.
