College football’s regular season is nearly at the halfway point, and two of the best and most consistent wide receivers in the country are teenagers. True freshmen. One of them is barely old enough to drive.
Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith, 18, and Alabama’s Ryan Williams, 17, are the latest — and absolute brightest — examples of what’s been a growing trend in every level of football over the last two decades: Young receivers are showing up ready, straight out of the box.
Smith, a 6-foot-3, 215-pounder from Miami, is Ohio State’s leading receiver (453 yards, 20 more than potential 2025 first-round pick Emeka Egbuka) and six touchdowns on 23 catches. Williams, a 6-foot, 175-pounder from Saraland, Ala., leads the Crimson Tide with 19 catches for 544 yards and six scores. Both players are starring at schools cloaked in wide receiver royalty. Each is on an early track to set new standards all the same.
The hell is going on here?
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We’ll get there. First, though, let’s rewind.
Twenty years ago, college football’s two highest-rated freshman wide receivers weren’t really wide receivers. Ted Ginn Jr. was an elite sprinter who starred at cornerback, quarterback and running back at Cleveland’s Glenville High School; Early Doucet was a powerful, explosive athlete who did just about everything but catch passes for St. Martinville, west of New Orleans. Both had NFL careers after eventually making big-time impacts in college, but neither starred right away. Ginn finished with 25 catches in 2004 — and was considered one of the top freshmen in America.
This was about how it went back then. Most receivers took time to develop, not unlike offensive tackles.
Mike Leach’s spread revolution truly began in the late 1990s, though, and it had completely changed high school football all over the country by the late 2000s. Gone were the days of defaulting your best athlete to running back or under center in the option. Pass games expanded and more was asked of receivers.
Things shifted when the world saw Larry Fitzgerald and Calvin Johnson. They changed for good when Leach’s offense generated 134 catches, 1,962 yards and 22 touchdowns for a redshirt freshman receiver named Michael Crabtree.
Today? The best athletes in the country play wide receiver, period. Not only that, the best of the best spend time in high school learning the ins and outs of route nuance, instead of trying to play three positions at the same time.
Apart from being among the best catches you’ll see all year, this Williams touchdown from Alabama’s shocking upset loss at Vanderbilt is made by a guy who looks like he’s been working on wide receiver technique for a decade.
Williams, who reclassified from the 2025 class to ’24 after his junior year, hasn’t been playing receiver that long — but he’s already been doing it, at a high level, for a while. He didn’t play in a run-heavy option offense in high school or even in the barebones version of an early-era spread. The pass game has advanced so much in the last two decades, and one of the benefits has been advanced teaching at a younger age for players like Williams. That’s not just happening in camps, but also in high school ball itself.
There is more conversation with coaches about how to properly work a release. Prospects work on ball skills, how to play through contact, how to run more than a go and a curl — that sort of pre-college development works wonders for every college receiver, including the freaks like Williams and Smith.
And, make no mistake, these two are freaks. Travis Hunter has the best ball skills of any current college football player, but Williams and Smith have flashed similar abilities this season.
Smith showed off everything he had to offer Saturday against Iowa, which has one of the best secondaries in America. His ability to blow the doors off whoever’s standing opposite him, either in press or off coverage, is elite, as are his in-air adjustments and ball skills. You can see on this long throw-and-catch (the first play in the clip below) how Smith separates with explosiveness (twice) and adjusts back to the ball for a successful catch.
The second clip shows a blend of everything, including the power Smith gets from a 6-3 frame that shouldn’t be able to move the way it does. That’s a one-hander in the end zone, by a true freshman, immediately after running away from the entire defense — and he makes it all look relatively easy.
Beyond just beating people deep and in the end zone, Smith also has shown advanced skill along the sideline, underneath and as a blocker. He is truly one of the most complete receivers in college football, at 18 years old.
Williams doesn’t have the size Smith does, but his effortless work in the air and in space this season has been remarkable. He’s averaging a whopping 13.4 yards after catch per reception and an even more staggering 4.86 yards per route this season, with an average target depth of 17 yards.
Both players are exceptional athletes. More importantly, they’re also both — already — exceptional wide receivers.
When Ginn began his sophomore year at Glenville in 2001, the offense still used wingbacks, and his head coach (his father) initially planned to put him on the JV squad. In Smith’s sophomore year at Chaminade-Madonna Prep, by contrast, he scored seven touchdowns and gained nearly 700 yards while averaging more than 20 yards per catch. Williams’ sophomore year at Saraland High School: 88 catches for 1,641 yards and 24 touchdowns.
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In football, trends trickle upward. High schools are throwing the ball more, so colleges are seeing more freshman and sophomore receivers who are ready to roll. And, as we’ve seen as recently as Puka Nacua’s record-setting 2023 performance, NFL teams are then finding gold mines in receivers on rookie contracts.
Since 2020, roughly 12 percent of all NFL Draft choices have been wide receivers (166). The only position with a higher number defends them: cornerback (174). Keyshawn Johnson (1996) remains the last WR to go No. 1 overall, but the trend of college and pro teams opting to get young at the position isn’t going anywhere.
A year from now, Oregon will welcome five-star WR Dakorien Moore, a burner who entered his senior season at Duncanville (Texas) with 130 career catches for 2,653 yards and 29 touchdowns. Texas presumably will be Arch Manning’s team next season, and that offense could include five-star freshman Kaliq Lockett, an explosive 6-2 receiver with a near 80-inch wingspan, and fellow 5-star WR Jaime Ffrench, another long and explosive 6-1 wideout who’s already caught a ton of passes in high school.
They could be the next superstar freshman receivers in line. Right now, that stage belongs to Williams and Smith. If either maintains current performance levels, Keyshawn Johnson could soon have company in the draft annals.
(Top photos of Jeremiah Smith and Ryan Williams: Jason Mowry, John Fisher / Getty Images)
