Florida Football Recruiting: Pursuing Jeremiah Smith feels like EverQuest

Jeremiah Smith is considered the number one wide receiver in the country by three of the four major recruiting services in the country. There are a multitude of reasons why Florida football would want him to suit up in 2024 as a Gator.

There is just one problem, Smith has been committed to Ohio State since December 14.

That hasn’t stopped Billy Napier and DJ Lagway from trying to flip the Miami-Dade County native from the soulless winters of Ohio to the bright and sunny pastures of Gainesville.

One question though, are the Gators actually making progress?

Florida Football: Never gonna give you up…

If you were not alive when it was released or are not familiar with the game EverQuest, it was one of the original massively multiplayer online games on PC. First released in 1999, the game was set up and designed to never actually end. Once you completed one quest, there was a new quest you could embark on.

Smith’s visits to Gainesville are starting to follow a similar theme.

Smith was given an offer by the Gators in May of 2021, attended camp on campus in July of 2022, made an unofficial visit after he was already committed to Ohio State in March, and made his official visit last month, the same weekend as DJ Lagway.

Combined with trips to Gainesville for track meets and 7 v 7 tournaments, Smith has made more trips to Florida than he has to the actual school he is committed to.

As Florida football opened up their Fall Camp today, guess who was also in attendance?

DJ Lagway and Jeremiah Smith.

So… he’s going to flip right?

Well…

Not so fast my friend

Lagway said afterward that he thinks Florida has a good chance to flip to Smith.

One shouldn’t read too much into that yet. That’s not a knock against Lagway, because if he responded with, “No, Napier has zero chance to get this guy,” it would have sent all the trolls on Twitter/X into a frenzy.

There are also a couple of clues that Smith is very aware of the narrative surrounding him.

Last week when word leaked that he was going to be in attendance for the start of Florida’s Fall Camp, he immediately quote-tweeted a post about Ohio State’s NIL situation that was sent out 22 hours prior.

Two days ago, fellow flip target Chance Robinson (a Miami commit) Tweeted/Xed out (seriously, how are we phrasing that now?) that he had an offer from Ohio State, Smith responded less than 10 minutes later with the hand to the chin emoji, which Gator fans thought was about Florida.

It is safe to say it wasn’t.

If we had to give betting odds here at Hail Florida Hail, we would say that the chances of Smith are low.

At the risk of being posted on Old Takes Exposed, we would put it under 5%.

Smith has said that he wants to see the Gators’ season play out, and that is believable. If Florida goes 4-8 or doesn’t feature wide receivers, then it’s understandable why one would not want to come to Gainesville.

What is more realistic is Smith is keeping his options open if Ohio State loses to Michigan again and Ryan Day gets fired. Smith has been far too vocal about his support for Day to believe he is going to pull a Hulk Hogan like heel turn and flip to Florida without just cause.

If you want to drive a narrative, one could say that Smith is using Florida to drive up his NIL value with the Buckeyes. We are not going down that road yet.

Billy Napier is well within his right to keep Jeremiah Smith in the picture to close out his 2024 class. Don’t burn bridges until they are officially burned.

But for Florida football fans, don’t wait around with bated breath.

Because to this point it feels like a never-ending quest to complete the flip, and your mental health will thank you if you just check back in around December.