It’s weird to hear Jeremiah Smith, now a sophomore, call a young Ohio State teammate the next man up at wide receiver.
No other wideout in Buckeye history has entered his second season with a 700-yard campaign already to his name, let alone a 1,300-yard season with a national championship like Smith has.
He should be the next man up, instead, he’s already arrived. But perhaps that makes it all the more compelling to hear the way he talked about Quincy Porter this spring.
“Quincy Porter (is a) big, tall receiver, just like me,” Smith said in April. “Came in, kept his head down, just working. I’m happy to see his future at Ohio State. Probably gonna be the next one up, for sure.”
Outside of redshirt freshman Mylan Graham, no Ohio State receiver made more noise this spring than Porter, who is already waiting in the panes of the revolving glass door that is Brian Hartline’s wide receiver room. Porter expects to play early in his career.
“I can do it and anybody can do it,” Porter said. “It's just putting the work in and knowing that it's possible.”
Porter finished as a five-star prospect in the 247Sports composite rankings, the No. 5 wide receiver and No. 23 player in the class of 2025. He surged from four-star to five-star status in late January following a standout week of practice and performance at the Navy All-American Bowl.
Porter put forth an excellent display of his skills at Ohio State’s Student Appreciation Day scrimmage on April 5, with a diving contested catch on a slant route the highlight among several receptions before a crowd of a few thousand Buckeye students. Following the scrimmage, he became the first freshman to shed his black stripe, and he remains the only freshman to do so to this point in the offseason.
“He was productive. He made a lot of contested catches,” Ryan Day said of Porter in his next press conference after Student Appreciation Day. “You guys were able to see that. We've seen a lot of that leading up to this point, and we don't like to get those black stripes off too early for the freshman, but he earned it, especially in a competitive, live day like that to make some of those catches. And he had a couple of catches before you guys even got in there that day that kind of lit up the group.”
A reserved player in interviews with a work-first mentality, Porter stayed mum about the early loss of his black stripe.
“It's definitely a great accomplishment,” Porter said. “But now I'm more focused on next up, and still preparing and attacking every day the same.”
The top skill that strikes the eye watching Porter play is his ability to make contested catches. He is acutely aware of where to position his body and how to shield defenders from the ball. Alongside his route running, similar to Smith last year, Porter’s shown he’s pretty advanced in the technical components of wide receiver for a freshman.
“I like just how gritty he was, how competitive he was, and he's showing toughness, again, making those contested physical catches,” Day said. “So if he can keep playing like that, he's going to find himself playing a lot of football this year.”
Porter’s part of a crop of freshmen receivers who have impressed Hartline with their approach in year one. He joined Phillip Bell, De’Zie Jones and Bodpegn Miller as signees at the position for the 2025 class, and the full quartet were midyear enrollees.
“Very encouraged with the young guys, though, the freshmen that have come in,” Hartline said. “They’re competing. They are making mistakes, but fixing the mistakes quickly and not making repeated mistakes. They're making some plays. There's probably some consistency level at which they, you know, you wish it was a little better, but they're doing a good job taking meetings to the field. So lots of encouraging signs early on, and I anticipate that to continue through summer.”
Porter’s produced flashes that prove he’s capable of living up to Smith’s billing as the “next one” out wide for the Buckeyes. As he develops in his first season, the key now will be not ust flashing, but executing every play.
“That's the expectation here, is to have great consistency,” Porter said. “Not just do it one play, but every play.”
