Ohio State wide receiver Jeremiah Smith became the Big Ten’s all-time leader in touchdown receptions on Saturday night, catching the 40th touchdown pass of his career in the fourth quarter of the Buckeyes’ 30-18 loss at USC, according to the Columbus Dispatch.
The record catch was a one-yard touchdown pass from freshman quarterback Luke Fahey with 2:12 left in the game, Eleven Warriors reported. It was Ohio State’s only touchdown of the night and, according to 247Sports, the Buckeyes’ first touchdown at the Los Angeles Coliseum since 1949.
Smith finished the game with 10 receptions for 83 yards, according to BuckeyesWire. The touchdown moved him past former Michigan receiver Braylon Edwards, who held the conference record with 39 touchdown catches from 2001 to 2004, the Dispatch reported.
Edwards himself congratulated Smith after the record fell. “Just giving a shoutout to a young man who just took over the all-time lead in receiving touchdowns for the Big Ten,” Edwards said in a video shared by Woodward Sports Network and reported by ClutchPoints. “Shoutout to Jeremiah Smith.”
Smith had tied Edwards’ mark two weeks earlier, on Oct. 17 at Indiana, when he caught a 38-yard touchdown on fourth-and-one in the fourth quarter of Ohio State’s 19-15 win over the Hoosiers, according to 247Sports. He needed just one more score to own the record outright, and he got it in his 37th career game — seven games faster than Edwards, who set his mark in 44 games at Michigan, Bleacher Report noted.
The USC game added another milestone on the way to the record. Earlier in the night, Smith became the first receiver in Ohio State history with three 1,000-yard seasons, reaching the mark on a 27-yard reception from Fahey, according to Ohio Sports Hub.
Smith’s junior season has been a steady rewrite of the record books. Through eight games he has 62 catches for 1,067 yards and 13 touchdowns, according to Bleacher Report, and he is a leading candidate for the Heisman Trophy. Earlier this season he broke Ohio State’s career records for receptions, receiving yards and touchdown catches, passing Chris Olave’s school touchdown mark of 35 at Iowa on Oct. 3, 247Sports reported.
His career arc explains how quickly the conference record came into reach. As a true freshman in 2024, Smith caught 15 touchdown passes and helped Ohio State win a national championship. He added 12 more as a sophomore in 2025, earning his second straight Big Ten Receiver of the Year award, according to the 247Sports timeline. This fall he tied Ohio State’s single-game record with four touchdown catches against Illinois and became the first Buckeye receiver with back-to-back 200-yard games, against Illinois and Iowa, Eleven Warriors reported.
The record also leaves Smith within reach of more history. His 13 touchdowns this season sit four short of Terry Glenn’s single-season Ohio State record of 17, set in 1995, according to Eleven Warriors. He entered Saturday 246 yards short of Purdue’s John Standeford for the Big Ten’s career receiving yards record of 3,788, 247Sports reported.
Edwards’ record had stood for more than two decades, and its longevity underlines what Smith has done. Edwards built his 39 touchdowns across four Michigan seasons from 2001 to 2004. Smith passed him partway through his third college season, in 37 games, and he now stands as the first player in Big Ten history with 40 career touchdown catches, according to Eleven Warriors.
Smith is also closing on the conference’s other career receiving marks. He is one of only five players in Big Ten history with at least 3,000 career receiving yards and 30 receiving touchdowns, according to 247Sports, and his combination of volume and scoring has kept him at the center of the national player-of-the-year conversation through the season’s second half. The record catch itself came from a freshman quarterback making his first start, Fahey, whose touchdown pass to Smith was the Buckeyes’ lone score of the night.
The milestone arrived inside a difficult night for the team. Ohio State fell to 8-2 overall and 4-1 in Big Ten play with the loss, according to BuckeyesWire, on a night when the Buckeyes outgained USC by nearly 130 yards but were hurt by 11 penalties. NewsForce247’s recap of the game is here: USC stuns No. 2 Ohio State as Fahey makes his first start. More Buckeye coverage: Ohio State women’s volleyball heads to Illinois.
What happens next: the Buckeyes return home with their Big Ten title hopes still alive at 4-1 in league play, and Smith continues his chase of Glenn’s single-season record and Standeford’s conference yardage mark over the season’s final weeks.
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