LOS ANGELES -- Jeremiah Smith served notice Monday to Oregon's defense if it chooses to play single coverage on him or any of the Ohio State receivers.
"I'm just laughing in my head. Why are y'all really playing man-on-man against us, or against me, I should say?" Smith said. "And when we see man [coverage] against any of our receivers, we're going to take a shot down the field.
"So I'm just letting everybody know right now that if you play man Wednesday, we're taking a shot."
Smith, Ohio State's dynamic freshman receiver, torched Tennessee with six catches for 107 yards and two touchdowns in the Buckeyes' 42-17 rout of the Vols in the first round of the College Football Playoff on Dec. 21. He was a one-man wrecking crew against Tennessee's man coverage.
Smith will be a focal point for Oregon in the Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential when the two teams meet Wednesday in a rematch of their Oct. 12 game, won 32-31 by the Ducks in Eugene.
"They're going to see a completely different player than the last time," said Smith, who caught nine passes for 100 yards and a touchdown in the first game against Oregon. "Even [receivers] Coach [Brian] Hartline told me the other day that I'm a whole different player from the first time we played Oregon until now. It started with understanding the game plan and knowing what the defense is trying to do."
Smith said the entire Ohio State team was "pissed off" about the 13-10 home loss to Michigan to end the regular season and played that way against Tennessee. He said the same goes for the Buckeyes' first loss, earlier in the season to Oregon.
"We were ready to get that bad taste out of our mouth, let it all loose and dominate Tennessee," Smith said. "Here's a chance to do it again."
It was an "angry" team that took the field against Tennessee, Ohio State quarterback Will Howard said.
"And you could see it," Howard said. "And I think when we play like that, we're hard to beat, and we have to keep that same mentality. I think that's really what the difference was, that anger, [being] pissed off, that chip on our shoulder we played with, and that's going to be crucial in this game."
The same goes for getting the ball to Smith, who leads the team in receiving yards (1,037) and touchdown catches (12). He said he arrived on campus weighing 208 pounds but is now up to 225 -- and hasn't lost a step.
Senior cornerback Denzel Burke is amazed every time he sees the 6-foot-3 Smith make an opposing cornerback look helpless.
"He's one of the best I've seen, and I think will be the best to come through here, and I've seen a lot of great ones and played with them," said Burke, reeling off the names of NFL receivers Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave, Marvin Harrison Jr. and Jaxon Smith-Njigba. "You see all those same qualities. He's calm. His work ethic is crazy, and he performs on game day.
"He's just different. He's a dog. You don't see that in a young 18-year-old coming out of high school."
Ohio State offensive coordinator Chip Kelly, who has been a head coach at both the collegiate and NFL ranks, said Monday that he has yet to see a receiver just like Smith.
"Not with that combination of size and speed and ability to catch and ability to track the ball," Kelly said. "There have been some other guys smaller that can do it and guys who were the same size, but they didn't run and move like him. And then it's his approach and mindset that truly make him special.
"We have to pull him back sometimes in practice. Some guys with that skill set will be like, 'Nah, I've got this.' But he never wants to miss anything. He's going to continue to grow because he wants to."
Smith said the leaders of the team, the regular and fifth-year seniors, have been the ones to help Ohio State weather the storm this season and get the Buckeyes to this point where they still have a chance to win a national championship despite the close losses to Michigan and Oregon. The loss to the Wolverines was especially hard to stomach. Ohio State was a three-touchdown favorite and has now lost four straight in the rivalry after winning eight in a row.
"Nobody wants to lose to [Michigan]. Everybody knows that, and I know the fans hate it. It's been going on for the last couple of years, and I know they're tired of it," Smith said. "But we were going to move forward, and the leaders on our team were going to make sure that happened. We were going to be ready for whoever we played first [in the playoff], and I can promise you we'll be ready for this game and everybody else who comes next."
ESPN's Pete Thamel contributed to this story.