Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith and Alabama’s Ryan Williams captured the country’s collective imagination last fall.
These two kids, true freshmen at powerhouse programs, were immediately two of the best players in the nation.
The wide receivers parlayed their already epic performances into an incredible honor — they’ll be on the cover of EA Sports College Football 2026 together.
But in an interview they conducted with The Athletic about the video game covered, the wideouts dropped a bigger bombshell:
Smith and Williams thought about being college football teammates.
“I tried to get him,” Williams told The Athletic. “I was like, c’mon, let’s team up. He was like, hmm. We thought about it.”
“It would’ve been crazy,” Smith said. “I don’t know how you stop that.”
“You can’t,” Williams replied.
Williams is right about that. The duo would’ve spent three college football seasons as absolutely unstoppable.
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Even more intriguing in this hypothetical universe is which school they would’ve ended up at, assuming that Ohio State or Alabama wound up winning the recruiting battle.
Instead, they’ll follow each other from afar for two more potent seasons before they’re allowed to head to the NFL.
Smith and Williams shared with The Athletic that they text one another after big games and that they each admire much about the other star wideout’s game.
They’ll be operating in similar circumstances for each of the next two seasons. They were already linked in their paths, and now even more so by the video game covered.
But imagine if they had been on the same team. Holy cow, that would’ve been special.