Top Ohio State weapon opts out of Playoff versus Georgia
Big news for Georgia’s playoff preparation broke on Monday as Ohio State announced that it will be without wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba for the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl versus Georgia. The junior pass catcher was considered to be one of the top players in all of College Football ahead of this season but an injury in the season-opener sidelined him for a few weeks before suffering a pair of setbacks over the course of the regular season and being labeled as inactive for Ohio State’s final five regular season games.
“He has had such a major impact here in Columbus, on and off the field, in a relatively short period of time,” Ohio State head coach Ryan Day said of the situation. Smith-Njigba will begin preparation for his NFL career instead of being with the team in Atlanta.
In three games this season Smith-Njigba caught five passed for 43 yards. Last year he led the Buckeyes with 95 receptions and 1,606 yards with nine touchdowns in 13 games including an outstanding performance in the Rose Bowl versus Utah. Smith-Njigba went for 347 yards and a trio of scores on 15 catches in that game alone as the Buckeyes beats the Utes 48-45 in Pasadena.
Smith-Njigba also posted the news himself to his social media feed with a message for Ohio State fans, thanking Buckeye Nation and expressing his desire to get back to 100% health ahead of the NFL Draft as the reason for his decision.
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Even without Smith-Njigba for the majority of the season there has been no shortage of wide receiver talent for the Buckeyes this year. Marvin Harrison Jr. and Emeka Egbuka have combined for 2,196 receiving yards and 21 touchdowns as each has gone over the 1,000-yard mark individually. Ohio State also has former five-star Julian Fleming as one of the top options for the nation’s No. 2 scoring offense.
“I’m excited. What a great program, great job Ryan (Day) has done there. They’ve got really good players because we recruited a lot of the same kids. It’ll be a premier matchup which our guys love,” Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said of his initial reactions to making the Playoff and taking on Ohio State during the ESPN Selection Show. “It’s not about the Big Ten and SEC, it’s about football. It boils down to the line of scrimmage, it boils down to turnovers, explosive plays, it’s not really about the two conferences in those games. You may make it about that but really it’s about who plays better because I also coached at Alabama when Ohio State absolutely destroyed us one semifinal game. They played better. They were more explosive and they didn’t have turnovers and we did at Alabama. It really boils down to how you play not who you play.”
“I’d like to give my guys a little to time to recover, relax, get in shape, worry about final exams. There’s so many things going on,” he added, speaking about the preparation process. “We’ve got official visits next weekend and you see a team that didn’t play in its conference championship, they had a week off. They’re going to be fresh and ready to go and ready to bounce back and start practicing. We have to be smart about how we practice our guys but also understand it’s going to be a physical game because Ohio State’s a very physical team.”
