Jeremiah Smith breaks Chris Olave’s Ohio State record with another historic touchdown originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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Ohio State has spent decades producing receivers who become household names. Jeremiah Smith now has more touchdown catches than any of them. Smith passed Chris Olave for the Buckeyes’ career receiving touchdown record during Saturday’s game against Iowa, adding another milestone to a junior season that already has rewritten part of the school’s record book.
His 36th career touchdown reception moved him past Olave’s previous standard of 35. Smith entered the matchup with 34, meaning he needed two touchdown catches to take sole possession of first place.
He delivered.
FOX Sports celebrated the achievement with a social media post announcing “ANOTHER RECORD FOR JEREMIAH SMITH!” For a player whose arrival came with enormous expectations, the numbers increasingly make the strongest argument. Smith is no longer simply chasing the receivers who helped establish Ohio State’s reputation at the position. In one of its most important categories, they are now chasing him.
Jeremiah Smith moves past an impressive Ohio State list
Olave accumulated his 35 touchdown receptions from 2018 through 2021. Before Smith’s latest breakthrough, David Boston followed with 34, while Marvin Harrison Jr. recorded 31 and Devin Smith finished with 30.
ANOTHER RECORD FOR JEREMIAH SMITH!
He passes Chris Olave for @OhioStateFB’s all-time receiving TD record!
📺: CBS pic.twitter.com/KZLFoNbfTR
— FOX Sports (@FOXSports) October 3, 2026
Those names provide the context for what happened Saturday.
Leading Ohio State in career touchdown catches requires more than a handful of spectacular afternoons. Smith built his total through immediate production as a freshman, another strong season as a sophomore and an explosive opening stretch this fall.
He caught 15 touchdown passes during Ohio State’s national championship season in 2024, then added 12 in 2025. That gave him 27 entering his junior year. Through the first four games of 2026, he added seven more. His second touchdown against Iowa brought his season total to nine and established the new career mark.
The achievement also comes with an intriguing possibility: Smith still has much of his junior season available to extend the record.
Every additional touchdown catch will raise the target for the next receiver trying to follow him.
MORE: Heisman Trophy odds 2026: Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith, Miami’s Darian Mensah lead race after Septembers to remember
Another record follows Smith’s four-touchdown eruption
Saturday’s milestone arrived one week after Smith delivered one of the biggest performances of his Ohio State career. Against Illinois on Sept. 26, he caught 12 passes for 217 yards and four touchdowns. The four scoring receptions tied the Buckeyes’ single-game record and moved him within one touchdown of Olave.
That performance followed another historic moment against Kent State, when Smith became Ohio State’s career receiving yards leader. The sequence shows how quickly his place in program history is changing. In September, he claimed the yardage record. In early October, he took the touchdown record.
For opposing defenses, those accomplishments offer little comfort. Smith’s production is a current problem as much as a historical achievement, giving quarterback Julian Sayin a receiver capable of turning opportunities into points.
Ohio State’s receiver tradition gave Smith an extraordinary standard to pursue.
Now his name sits at the top.
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