Travis Smith Jr. is a 4-star WR coming out of Atlanta, GA at the notorious Westlake High. He is one of the best wide receivers across the state and even across the nation. His combination of size and speed makes him practically unguardable without a double team. He stands at 6-foot-4 and weighs about 200 pounds. His ability to sky over defenders and bring in tough, contested catches is what sets him apart. His game can be compared to Deandre Hopkins and Calvin Johnson, as he is balanced with route running and speed but his best play will be a fade ball within the redzone that allows him to use all of his size and put defenders to shame. He is a Tennessee commit and this should be a great system for him as their WR Dont’e Thornton Jr. looked very similar to Travis Smith coming out of high school. He was a 6-foot-5, 4-star receiver who excelled as a possession receiver. He has rounded out all aspects of his game under the Tennessee staff and has taken a leap this year, being the Volunteers leading receiver on the season. As he finishes his senior year with freshman QB Nico Iamaleava, bringing in a prospect like Travis Smith is huge for their offense and the overall development of the team. He would finish the regular season, sitting at top-3 in the state of GA for receiving yards with 1,248 yards on 61 receptions and added 15 touchdowns to complete a great senior campaign.
Check out his highlights so far this season below:
https://twitter.com/Travis_Smith_Jr/status/1852425080825098463
Check out my interview with Travis below:
Who is your favorite NFL/College player that you try to model your game after?
I think it’s a mixture of a few players. The players that stand out to me the most are guys like Calvin Johnson and Mike Evans. George Pickens is another guy who is kind of the newest out of that group. I try to look at bigger-frame guys who can make plays after the catch, and who have a really strong catch radius.
What’s your favorite thing about playing WR?
Just attacking the ball, I love matchups that kind of put me in the position to make big plays. Especially when the time is winding down and we are in a position where we need a big play. I just feed off of that. I’ve always been a guy that has been in the position where my team can always depend on. But as I have gotten older and developed more, I love receiver even more because I know how hard I’ve worked to get to where I’m at. I always feel like I can do what I have trained myself to do and that’s making big plays in different areas of the field and being in a position to help my team throughout the game.
The offense has really leaned into feeding you this season with you having over 1,200 yards already and 15 total TDs, how nice does it feel to have that trust from your teammates and coaches?
It feels good, I mean I had a long road it wasn’t just handed to me. I come from a background at Westlake where it was nothing but studs and top-tier corners, like AJ Terrell, AV Terrell, Christian Peterson and even more. Everyday since freshman year, I’ve seen them and their potential so I knew I had to really be on point with my skill. I really just felt like it was best for me to be prepared for my time and I really feel thankful that my dad has helped invest in that for me. Also having a new OC, Coach Quin Roberson and HC, Coach Morris Mitchell have both helped me be in a position to learn and prepare for the next level going into Tennessee. I think that’s been the big thing and I know that that is something that can help me transition over these next few months as I head off to college.
I see you recently just committed to Tennessee, congrats. What made you know that this was the right school for you to continue your career over all the other big options that you had?
It was tough. Because I had a good relationship with everybody that was showing interest in me. I think just the relationship that I built with Coach Heupel and Coach Pope, and of course Coach Halzle, on the OC side. They just stayed on me, showed me that I was their guy, and made it feel like home, despite it being a difficult decision for me to go there over other schools. But it hit me one day and I really feel like Tennessee is in the position to be one of the top teams in the country moving forward with Nico coming in, George MacIntyre, and then we have a ’26 kid who is a top QB as well. And then of course David Sanders, the list goes on and on. They are doing everything they can to show that they are going to be a force offensively. So why not be in a position where you could be a part of an electric offense, you know? So that’s kind of what stood out to me and what made me feel like that would be the best choice for me.
So over the past 4 seasons, What has been your favorite HS game of your career so far and what made it your favorite?
There are multiple answers. I think my coming out game in my junior year, the first game of the season against North Cobb, a top-tier team, in 7A at the time. I finally had my position, finally starting as the #1 WR, and the first play that came to me, I went for 80 yards and it was like I finally got that monkey off my back, and from there it was like, that was it. That kind of opened the door for me to be that guy where the confidence was there, the IQ was there, where I knew I could make those plays.
Then the other game, even though we lost, we played against Carrollton, which was at the time the #7 team in the country. And you know they are spread all across the board with 4-star/5-star guys and going against that level of competition in their secondary, I was able to get over 250 yards. That was a big deal for me because I wanted to show that I have the skill set and the capability to succeed against any top-tier secondary/defense and I did just that.
You guys have a pretty good offense overall, with Sean Smith at QB and having Naeem Odeniyi in the backfield, who have both been among the top of the district in performance. How is it playing alongside those guys?
It’s been great. First and foremost with Sean, coming in as a QB last year, he had no experience at QB. Maybe minimal as a freshman/underclassman, but he wasn’t a QB, so there was some skepticism about whether he could make those plays to the guys that needed to get the ball and he did it. It’s been great to play with him and show that you know you don’t have to be a big 4/5 Star to be able to make plays as a QB and get the ball to the guys. You just have to be able to know where your sweet spots are and how you can make your plays. It’s been a really big emphasis on Sean and I having a good bond, so shoutout to my boy Sean, that’s my dawg. And then with Naeem, he’s another situation where he’s seen the guys before him come up and he’s always been locked in, you always can depend on him to make the big play. He’s another thousand-yard-a-season guy who’s in a position where he shows that he can make plays and he’s a guy who deserves as much praise as he gets.
Also we didn’t even get a chance to include Tomir Bransford, he had a collarbone injury, recently about 2 months ago, that has had him out. He’s committed to Georgia State, but that is another guy in the backfield that’s a dog. He’s a bigger back who is shifty and knows how to make plays too. So I’m going to also keep him in that conversation as well because he didn’t get a chance to play the majority of the season after game 3/4. But he’s back now, so I hope that he will help us get everything lined up for the playoffs.
Entering your senior year, what were some personal goals that you were looking to accomplish this year and how have they gone?
Mainly, just trying to make sure I make plays after the catch. I think a big part of being a big receiver is not being just a catch-only guy. For me, it was getting myself in the mindset of when I get the ball, how can I get more yardage? A lot of the things that I have been doing are not just post routes but more slants, screen action, and digs so I kind of wanted to really thrive off of training and building myself to have more foot speed and being more agile and improving my ability to create space off of my breaks. That’s the biggest thing about me as a bigger-frame receiver, it’s very important to show that you don’t just run posts and big go routes but you can do everything across the field.
You guys are currently 5-5 on the season, what is something that has been working well this season and what’s something the team can improve on?
Well, people have to understand that we had probably the toughest schedule in the state, whether it was 5A or 6A. We played against the best of the best, top-tier defenders and offensive guys and we have a young team. Many of the guys that were here last year and the year before are gone off playing in college now. So the guys that were behind them are sophomores or first-year starters, so we know what we’re up against. We really started to click more as the season went along, just being disciplined, and being in the position to make plays when it counted. Even with the losses, there were certain things we noticed that we realized with a few more years or even a year more of experience, that’s a win for us, it just takes us to go through those things to learn from it. So hopefully going into the playoffs we will be in a position to execute all the things that we didn’t do well. We did well on being able to close out games in crunch time and some things we didn’t do well on, such as against Douglas County was positioning. Just knowing when to try to make the big play and when not to. I think we got caught up with trying to go tit-for-tat with them and in the 4th quarter, going up against a top 6A team, we had the chance to take the lead. But certain things happened late in the game that allowed them to get the ball on our side of the field, which made the gap even bigger and made things harder for us. We aren’t focused totally on the record, we just know when to make the big plays and get the wins when we need to get them.
67
0
17
20
