For the third time this offseason, Jeremiah Smith made his hatred for the Michigan Wolverines clear.
In an appearance on The Triple Option podcast, former Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer asked Smith to share his opinion of the “Team Up North.” Smith wasted no time with his answer.
“Hate,” he said. “With everything in me, I hate them.”
At the OT7 Playoffs in July, The Athletic’s Manny Navarro asked Smith the emotions he experienced since Ohio State suffered an unthinkable loss to Michigan in November 2024. Thus began Smith’s summer of expressing his distaste for the Wolverines.
“I’m not a sore loser, but I hate losing, and losing to that team up north was pretty crazy,” Smith said. “In the end, I think it really helped us play the way we did in the playoffs. But I didn’t want to go to Ohio State and lose to that team up north. I just hate them. Just something about them. For the next two years, I promise you, I will not lose to them. I can’t lose to them in the next two years.”
Three weeks later, at Big Ten Media Days, reporters asked Smith’s comments to Navarro, asking him if his comments were a step too far.
“I feel like they feel the same way about us,” Smith said. “They don’t like us. We don’t like them. So I mean, it’s a rivalry, that’s been going on for 100-plus years. It’s going to continue to be that way, even when I’m done playing here at Ohio State.”
Ohio State and Michigan will face off on Nov. 29 in Ann Arbor. The Buckeyes’ latest win in the Big House — and the rivalry — came on Nov. 30, 2019, when Justin Fields and J.K. Dobbins led the team to a 56-27 win.
