Everybody knows that one of the best parts of being a sports fan is debating and dissecting the most (and least) important questions in the sporting world with your friends. So, we’re bringing that to
the pages of LGHL with our favorite head-to-head column: You’re Nuts.
In You’re Nuts, two LGHL staff members will take differing sides of one question and argue their opinions passionately. Then, in the end, it’s up to you to determine who’s right and who’s nuts.
Today’s Question: Which Halloween costume best matches Jeremiah Smith’s on-field persona?
Jami’s Take: Michael Myers
Perhaps choosing a costume from the film “Halloween” is taking the question a little too literally, but in my defense, it’s only fitting that the best player in college football would get to dress up as the coldest of the stone-cold killers, the stabby king of the holiday: Michael Myers.
Michael Myers is famously invincible, known for catching babysitters, neighbors, and even his own sister unaware as he commits his crimes. Even after being imprisoned, shot, or knocked off a balcony, ole Mikey here can’t be stopped for long.
“You can’t kill the boogeyman,” as the saying goes.
So too it goes with Jeremiah Smith. While all of Smith’s killing is metaphorical and takes place on the football field, much like Myers, he simply cannot be stopped. Not by bad passes. Not by opposing defenders. Not even by Jamie Lee Curtis.
Smith has the speed, strength, and ability to get the job done—skills that serve Myers well in his crime sprees as well. Myers has a tendency to wreak havoc and disappear before the people around him can even process what has happened.
Have you ever seen Jeremiah Smith catch a football? The number of times a defender is right there with him and then suddenly, Smith is somewhere else altogether (often the endzone), ball in hand, could fill a lengthy highlight reel. Like Myers, he is always a step ahead of his opponents, so much so that his opponents look more like victims in his wake.
Smith is responsible for the serial slaughtering of football opponents, mercilessly taking them down one by one. He led the Big Ten and sat fourth in the NCAA last year in receiving yards with 1,315 yards and 15 touchdowns. This season, Smith has a target on his back, with opponents selling out on defense to try to contain him.
Still, he has managed 602 yards and seven touchdowns through the first seven games.
He’s causing so much destruction to opponents, he might as well be in that utility jumpsuit. The only real issue with Smith wearing a Michael Myers costume is the color—scarlet suits him much better than blue.
Matt’s Take: E.T.
Call me a conspiracy theorist, call me a tin-foil hat-wearing loon, call me an outer space truther, but I have long held the belief that Ohio State’s wide receivers were not of this world (as evidenced by the completely genuine, not at all tongue-in-cheek articles that I have written in recent years.
So, if we are going to be picking halloween costumes for Jeremiah Smith, I have no choice but to return to Area 51. Now, you don’t need Mulder and Scully to figure out that the Ohio State sophomore wide receiver has physical capabilities that far surpass those normally demonstrated by the species known as Homo sapiens. So, if J.J. is not human, than what is he?
My belief is that he is not of this world, therefore, he is an extra-terrestrial. So my Halloween costume choice would be E.T., as in the iconic 1982 movie “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.”
When you first looked at the little ugly bugger, you could obviously tell that he was different. While he could blend in with a mountain of stuffed animals and dolls, on his own, he clearly stood out. The same is true for Jeremiah, especially after he changed his body this offseason.
But, despite some people underestimating E.T., he continually proved that he was more capable and gifted than anyone could even imagine. The same is true for Smith. Everytime we think that he has done the most incredible thing that we’ve ever seen, he goes out and does something even more ridiculous.
But what’s most poigniant for this silly little exercise is that the main thing that E.T. and Jeremiah Smith have in common is the fact that they are uniquely skilled at bringing together a band of overlooked and underappreciated individuals, and helping them to achieve new heights… while, admittedly, only one of them does it on a bike.
If you go back and watch the higlights from the College Football Playoff run, what J.J. did (as a true freshman, mind you) is no doubt out of this world. The Buckeyes had been embarrassed against Michigan, no one truthfully expected them to go on the run that they did. And while Smith is not the only person responsible for turning things around, there is little doubt that his presence inspired the team to defy the odds, just like E.T. and the kids defied the authorities.
These two disparate groups of people bound together by a deep love and affection — dare I say, brotherhood — for each other fought against their narrowminded oppressors to accomplish something that was not only beautiful, but genuienly the right thing to do, get E.T. back to his family in outer space and win Ohio State another national title.
