Most coaches praise a star player after losing to him. Steve Sarkisian did it after winning.
Almost four weeks after Texas escaped Austin with a 24-23 victory over Ohio State, Sarkisian was still thinking about one player on the other side. On Wednesday’s SEC coaches teleconference, he was asked about Jeremiah Smith, and he went straight to the top shelf of football history.
If anyone can take over a game the way Randy Moss did, Sarkisian said, it’s Smith.
That’s a big sentence. Moss isn’t a name you invoke casually, and Sarkisian knows it better than most. So it’s worth asking: what exactly was he seeing, and does the comparison hold up?
The Checklist Sarkisian Gave Us
Sarkisian didn’t just drop the name and walk away. He listed the traits behind it, and the list reads like a scouting report on a player who has no weaknesses:
- Length. Smith is listed at 6-foot-4.
- Strength. He’s now 222 pounds, a few more than Moss carried.
- Speed. The part defenders can’t cheat against.
- Ball adjustment. He bends his body to the throw instead of waiting for a perfect one.
- Catch-and-run ability. Short throws can become long gains.
- Football intelligence. Ohio State moves him all over the formation, and he handles it.
- Gravity. In Sarkisian’s words, he commands your attention on every single snap.
Notice how many of those aren’t about raw athleticism. Plenty of receivers are tall and fast. Fewer are smart enough to be moved around the formation and still produce, and fewer still force a defense to account for them before the ball is even snapped.
Why Sarkisian’s Moss Reference Isn’t Random
Here’s the detail that makes this more than a quote. Sarkisian has actual Moss history. In 2004, he was coaching quarterbacks for the Oakland Raiders, and he remembers Al Davis asking the offensive coordinator about a draft prospect: was this guy another Randy Moss? Davis made it clear that a freak was exactly what he wanted.
Two decades later, Sarkisian is applying the same test, and Smith is passing it.
The Moss Numbers (and a Coincidence Worth Pointing Out)
To understand why the name carries weight, look at what Moss actually did:
- At Marshall, he caught 174 passes for 3,529 yards and 54 touchdowns in just two seasons, winning the Biletnikoff Award.
- He fell to 21st in the 1998 NFL Draft, then caught 69 passes for 1,313 yards and a rookie-record 17 touchdowns for the Vikings.
- On Thanksgiving Day that season, he scored three touchdowns of 50-plus yards against Dallas, the team that passed on him.
- He finished with 982 catches, 15,292 yards, and 156 touchdowns, and set the single-season record with 23 touchdown catches in 2007.
Now the fun part. Moss’s rookie yardage in the NFL was 1,313. Smith’s freshman yardage at Ohio State was 1,315. They’re different levels of football, so this isn’t an equivalence, but it’s a striking coincidence for two players who changed what defenses feared.
Smith’s 2026 Pace Looks Moss-Like on Its Own
Through five games this season, Smith has 44 catches, 823 yards, and nine touchdowns, and he leads the country in all three categories. He’s also the current Heisman favorite.
Here’s the stat that ties the story together: 823 yards over five games averages out to about 164.6 per game. In Austin, against Texas, Smith caught eight passes for 164 yards and a touchdown. In other words, the Longhorns didn’t face some peak, one-off version of Smith. They faced his typical game, and they still survived by one point.
The Most Honest Part of Sarkisian’s Answer
The Moss comparison got the headlines, but the most revealing thing Sarkisian said was about his own team.
He admitted he doesn’t know if Texas played Ohio State great. The Longhorns found a way to get a couple of stops in the second half, he said, but the first half was a tough go. And then the line that captures the whole problem: you’d better know where Smith is at all times, because he can strike the fear of God in you on any snap.
That’s a coach who won the game and is still describing it like someone who barely got out alive. It’s also the best evidence for the comparison. Defenses don’t game-plan around players like Moss. They game-plan for survival.
What Happens Next
The two teams won’t meet again unless it’s in the College Football Playoff. Ohio State, now ranked fifth, hosts Maryland on Saturday. Texas, ranked No. 1, heads to Dallas for the Red River Rivalry against Oklahoma at 3:30 p.m. ET.
If a rematch does come in January, expect Sarkisian to arrive with a very specific plan, and a very healthy respect for number four. The man who won the first meeting already told us how he feels about it.
The Bottom Line
Comparisons to all-time greats usually come from fans, media members, or the player’s own hometown. This one came from the opposing head coach, who watched Smith up close, won anyway, and still felt the need to say what he saw. Coaches don’t hand out Randy Moss comparisons as a courtesy. They make them because they’ve stood on the sideline and felt it.
