Birmingham Stallions quarterback J’Mar Smith, front right, collects the snap during the first half of a USFL football game against the Philadelphia Stars for the league championship, Sunday, July. 3, 2022, in Canton, Ohio. (AP Photo/David Dermer)

Caution: speed bumps ahead

Smith perseveres on road to the pros

When Birmingham Stallions quarterback J’Mar Smith takes the field, his quickness and agility in the pocket make him one of the most dangerous offensive threats in the United States Football League. He can tuck the ball and take off for a big gain, zig-zagging past opponents as he sprints down the field, or he can evade defenders in the backfield until a receiver gets open. Smith ran a 4.84 40-yard dash coming out of college, according to The Boston Globe, but he seems to play even faster. The problem is Smith has not been able to take the field recently after hitting a speed bump while racing to prove himself in his second year as a professional quarterback. The right-handed quarterback was ranked as the best player in the USFL by Pro Football Network’s BJ Rudell entering the 2023 season, but he pulled nearly every tendon in his left ring finger while blocking on a reverse during the Stallions’ first game of the season. For now, he cannot take a snap under center while his finger is still tender. What he can do is return from this setback to achieve even more in the sport he loves, as he has done time and time again. The road to the pro ranks of football is paved straight for some prospects, but many professionals were forced to travel a long, winding path to achieve their dreams of shedding their amateur status to suit up in the highest ranks of the sport. Smith’s road has not been easy, but a competitive mindset and a will to win have taken him on a unique trip to the top of the USFL.“As a quarterback, as a player, as a football person, you should compete,” Smith said. “As a person in general, you should compete in your daily life. It just makes things fun, it makes things better, it makes things competitive.” J’Mar Smith has been around football since he was born in 1996, as his father was a standout defensive lineman for the Meridian Wildcats at that time. Kenny Smith would go on to play for the University of Alabama and a few different NFL teams after graduating from Meridian High School in 1997. J’Mar spent much of his youth in Meridian competing in football, basketball and baseball, often with his cousins. As a bigger youth football player, he lined up at different positions and even saw snaps at defensive line. “(My dad) played defensive line, so every time I was on defense I prided myself in making the play or making the tackle,” J’Mar said in an interview. “I would say there was a little bit of pressure, but I never held myself up to the standard of trying to be like him. I was just trying to make sure I played the game like he played it.”When he wasn’t in Meridian, J’mar spent time around his father’s professional teammates. He said being around a professional football environment at a young age was like a movie. “When I was in New England, I took him up there with me,” the elder Smith said. “I came out of the weight room, and he was throwing with (Tom) Brady, so I knew I lost him on the defensive side. I knew he’d be stuck at quarterback because he’s a leader.” By the time J’Mar got to Meridian High, he showed substantial potential in both football and baseball. Larry Weems, J’Mar’s high school football coach, saw him throw some footballs at a local camp and decided to put him at quarterback, where he quickly developed with the help of top target Corey Davis, who is his cousin. “I was a senior when he came to this earth, so being able to see your son there, and I’m sure him knowing I was on the same field, it’s kind of a spark for both sides,” Kenny said. J’Mar watched former Mississippi Gatorade Player of the Year Tyler Russell lead the Wildcats to a 26-20 win over South Panola in the 2008 5A State Championship, breaking the Tigers’ 89-game win streak. It was then he knew what fans expected of the starting MHS quarterback. “There’s a lot of guys that we’ve had at quarterback that could throw the ball, run the ball,” he said. “For me to be one of the ninth graders who came through Meridian High and had a chance to play and start at quarterback in ninth grade, it was a big responsibility. Everybody in Meridian knows sports is life, especially football and basketball.” He said he thought a couple of his Meridian teams were good enough to win state titles, but they came up short. Still, J’Mar displayed his talents. He often exceeded expectations, leading his team to a district championship as a freshman while throwing for 2,565 yards with a 62.8% completion percentage, 26 touchdowns and no interceptions as a senior. J’Mar’s dad said he knew his son would be good enough to play in college, but he also knew J’Mar had to drop weight to stay at quarterback at the next level. J’Mar conditioned his body over the course of his high school career, trading excess fat for muscle until he stood 6-foot-1, 215-pounds by his senior year. It was during that time when football and baseball scouts were targeting J’Mar, who 247Sports ranked as the No. 31 quarterback in the 2015 recruiting class. He was recruited by several Southeastern Conference schools, including Alabama, where his father played. The Crimson Tide staff wanted J’Mar to switch to defense. Additionally, Ole Miss targeted him as a linebacker. Instead, he set his sights on Mississippi State, which offered him during his freshman year. However, the dream to play for the Bulldogs never came to fruition because State pulled J’Mar’s offer in 2014 after two quarterbacks committed before him. He said he was planning on committing at State’s next game while on a visit that weekend, but he found out from a reporter that his offer was pulled. “That was a bummer because I really did want to go to Mississippi State,” he said. J’Mar wanted to either become a high draft pick in the Major League Baseball or play both of his sports in college at a high level, and he spent a few months prior to his senior year focusing exclusively on baseball so he might achieve one of those goals. That led the San Diego Padres to draft him in the 24th round of the 2015 MLB Draft, but the organization could not convince him to sign. Louisiana Tech fans can thank Tim Rattay, LA Tech’s quarterbacks coach, for securing J’Mar’s signature. Before he knew the younger Smith, Rattay played against his father twice when he starred for LA Tech at quarterback. “That added a comfortable home feeling for me picking a college that I wanted to be at,” J’Mar said. He was grayshirted on the baseball team during his freshman year, but he made the LA Tech roster in the next year as a utility player after playing mostly catcher in high school. J’Mar said he wanted to pitch, but head football coach Skip Holtz would not let him. “I understand you don’t want your starting quarterback pitching,” he said. “I really did want to pitch, but it was a great time being with the baseball guys. It gave me that feeling of playing the sport that I first loved.” Playing two sports was “stress free” for J’Mar, though he did have to occasionally rush between spring football practices and baseball games. He said it was a dream to play two sports at once in college, but the dream did not last long. A 2018 clean-up surgery on his left knee forced him to stop playing baseball, as he struggled to regain control of his quad muscles after the surgery. He says he still misses baseball every day. On the football field, J’Mar redshirted his freshman year while learning the playbook and how to read defenses. He was mostly just taught to throw the ball to the open player in high school, but faster college defenders were more capable of locking on to his offensive weapons. “Transitioning to quarterback was natural, honestly,” he said. “I didn’t have a problem with catching the ball, throwing the ball, throwing to the open guy, trying to make plays. It was when I got to college that I really understood the position of quarterback and reading defenses and taking control of the offense.” Fortunately, J’Mar had some good coaching around him to help him develop. He took a liking to Holtz without knowing the full extent of the impact that the coach would have on his quarterbacking career. “He’s a great person,” J’Mar said on Holtz. “He’ll try his best to do whatever he can for you, and he’ll got to bat for you. Literally to the last drop, he’ll go to war for you. I really could write a book about him.” J’Mar went on to play in 44 football games across his college career, completing over 59% of his passes for 51 touchdowns to only 21 interceptions. He currently sits third in career passing yards in the LA Tech record books and fourth in passing touchdowns. The dual-threat signal-caller also rushed for 856 yards and 15 touchdowns in college. However, J’Mar stumbled near the end of his senior season. The Bulldogs had an 8-1 record in 2019 before he was suspended for two regular season games in November for a violation of team policy. Aaron Allen filled in at quarterback for those contests, but he was unable to pull off a win. The Bulldogs fell to Marshall 31-10 and the University of Alabama at Birmingham 20-14 before J’Mar returned from suspension to lead his team to a 41-27 victory over the University of Texas at San Antonio to close out the regular season. “(I was) just going out and making sure that I could end on a good note,” he said. “I let a lot of people down, but life happens. You can’t live in the past. You have to move forward and get better. The UTSA victory was just a warmup for a bigger fish, the University of Miami, which LA Tech faced in the Walk On’s Independence Bowl in Sherveport, Louisiana, to wrap the 2019 season. J’Mar tossed an interception, but he also threw for 163 yards and a touchdown and rushed for another touchdown to cap his college career with a 14-0 shutout of Miami. After the season, J’Mar prepared for the NFL Draft with trainer Tom Shaw, who he said is a great quarterback coach and speed trainer. J’Mar said the transition to four months of eating right, doing little apart from training all day, and going to sleep at the same time each night down in Daytona Beach, Florida, was a peaceful transition from what he had become accustomed to. Then came the 2020 NFL Draft, and with it, the opportunity for J’Mar to see his hard work pay off. He went undrafted, but the New England Patriots signed him as an undrafted free agent. However, he was never given much of a chance in New England, and he was cut from the team a few months later as he tried to adapt to a pro-style offense. “I wish I could have gotten up there to New England so that I could have gotten a chance in the rooms in front of the coaches, to stay with the coaches, and to just be up there in the rooms in the facility. One thing I will say is the two suspensions hurt me,” J’Mar said. He was then hired to coach quarterbacks at Huntington High School in Shreveport before he spent a brief stint as a practice roster quarterback for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League in 2021. J’Mar said he plans to return to coaching football when his gas tank eventually hits empty. “It just gives us something to be around (football) when we can’t play,” he said. “I just wanted to be a servant-leader and help guys get to where they want to go. I was blessed to be around guys that helped me get to where I wanted to go, and where I’m still trying to go, so I just wanted to give back in a sense.” Just as J’Mar was considering trying to make a professional team overseas, he was selected in the 12th round by the Birmingham Stallions in the 2022 USFL Draft. He said he was playing video games when he received a call from Holtz, who became the head coach and general manager of the Stallions in 2022, to tell J’Mar he was selected. J’Mar was the second quarterback selected by the Stallions in the draft, as Alex McGough was selected with the sixth pick in the first round. McGough was given the starting job at the beginning of the season, but J’Mar was unfazed. “Me and Alex were competing when we first got there,” J’Mar said. “I knew he was going to get drafted, and I don’t care about anybody getting drafted. Everybody puts their shoes on the same way, everybody puts their pants on the same way, it’s about who is going to compete and who is going to lead the team and be the best at the position. McGough was injured in the 2022 season-opener, but J’Mar stepped into the starting role for much of the remainder of the season, leading them to a 9-1 record in the regular season before helping his team win the inaugural USFL Championship Game later that year. He was forced out of the championship game with a calf injury he sustained in the second half with McGough coming in to take the reins and lead the Stallions to a 33-30 victory over the Philadelphia Stars. “It was a little bit of weight lifted off my shoulders, knowing the job’s not finished and knowing I’ve got a lot bigger things to accomplish,” J’Mar said on winning a championship in a professional league. “For (Holtz and I) to get a championship, not just a bowl win but a championship, it felt good.” J’Mar thought the calf pain was from a cramp at first, and a couple plays later he thought he pulled a muscle. It turned out to be a light strain that he was able to rehab in the offseason, but his finger injury in game one of the 2023 season proved to be more serious. “I put my hands on his shoulder pads, just blocking the outside pad, and that’s it,” J’Mar said on how he was injured. “We do run a lot of t-bone or under center situations, and I would have to catch an under-center snap, and at that point anything that touched my hand was coming out because it was sensitive to touch. In a sense, I pulled just about every tendon that’s in my left ring finger.” J’Mar said he laughed at the team doctor that told him he pulled the tendons in his finger in the first game of the season after he was knocked out of last season’s final game. He said he was not stressed about the injury because it did not affect his throwing hand. “I’m right-handed, so the money maker is still there,” J’Mar said in June. “The only thing is I need to make sure my strength level is back to my right hand, which is almost there. We’re about 80% there.” McGough went on to lead the Stallions to a 8-2 record with J’Mar, out for the season, watching from the sidelines. He threw four touchdowns in the Stallions’ 28-12 victory over the Pittsburgh Maulers in the 2023 USFL Championship and won league MVP for his standout season. J’Mar said he was ready to compete with McGough for the starting quarterback spot in 2024, but he may not have to. CBS Sports reported that McGough was expected to be signed by the NFL’s Green Bay Packers in July to try out for the backup role behind Jordan Love. (UPDATE IN AUGUST BEFORE RELEASE!!!) J’Mar’s career has seen plenty of ups and downs already, and there are likely more of both ahead for the young quarterback. Another career high point may be in the near future for him, as it is likely he will compete with someone for the starting quarterback position of the two-time defending USFL champions once he heals from his latest injury. Fortunately for J’Mar, competing may just be what he does best.

Caution: speed bumps ahead

Smith perseveres on road to the pros

When Birmingham Stallions quarterback J’Mar Smith takes the field, his quickness and agility in the pocket make him one of the most dangerous offensive threats in the United States Football League. He can tuck the ball and take off for a big gain, zig-zagging past opponents as he sprints down the field, or he can evade defenders in the backfield until a receiver gets open.

Smith ran a 4.84 40-yard dash coming out of college, according to The Boston Globe, but he seems to play even faster. The problem is Smith has not been able to take the field recently after hitting a speed bump while racing to prove himself in his second year as a professional quarterback.

The right-handed quarterback was ranked as the best player in the USFL by Pro Football Network’s BJ Rudell entering the 2023 season, but he pulled nearly every tendon in his left ring finger while blocking on a reverse during the Stallions’ first game of the season.

For now, he cannot take a snap under center while his finger is still tender. What he can do is return from this setback to achieve even more in the sport he loves, as he has done time and time again.

The road to the pro ranks of football is paved straight for some prospects, but many professionals were forced to travel a long, winding path to achieve their dreams of shedding their amateur status to suit up in the highest ranks of the sport. Smith’s road has not been easy, but a competitive mindset and a will to win have taken him on a unique trip to the top of the USFL.“As a quarterback, as a player, as a football person, you should compete,” Smith said. “As a person in general, you should compete in your daily life. It just makes things fun, it makes things better, it makes things competitive.”

J’Mar Smith has been around football since he was born in 1996, as his father was a standout defensive lineman for the Meridian Wildcats at that time. Kenny Smith would go on to play for the University of Alabama and a few different NFL teams after graduating from Meridian High School in 1997.

J’Mar spent much of his youth in Meridian competing in football, basketball and baseball, often with his cousins. As a bigger youth football player, he lined up at different positions and even saw snaps at defensive line.

“(My dad) played defensive line, so every time I was on defense I prided myself in making the play or making the tackle,” J’Mar said in an interview. “I would say there was a little bit of pressure, but I never held myself up to the standard of trying to be like him. I was just trying to make sure I played the game like he played it.”When he wasn’t in Meridian, J’mar spent time around his father’s professional teammates. He said being around a professional football environment at a young age was like a movie.

“When I was in New England, I took him up there with me,” the elder Smith said. “I came out of the weight room, and he was throwing with (Tom) Brady, so I knew I lost him on the defensive side. I knew he’d be stuck at quarterback because he’s a leader.”

By the time J’Mar got to Meridian High, he showed substantial potential in both football and baseball. Larry Weems, J’Mar’s high school football coach, saw him throw some footballs at a local camp and decided to put him at quarterback, where he quickly developed with the help of top target Corey Davis, who is his cousin.

“I was a senior when he came to this earth, so being able to see your son there, and I’m sure him knowing I was on the same field, it’s kind of a spark for both sides,” Kenny said.

J’Mar watched former Mississippi Gatorade Player of the Year Tyler Russell lead the Wildcats to a 26-20 win over South Panola in the 2008 5A State Championship, breaking the Tigers’ 89-game win streak. It was then he knew what fans expected of the starting MHS quarterback.

“There’s a lot of guys that we’ve had at quarterback that could throw the ball, run the ball,” he said. “For me to be one of the ninth graders who came through Meridian High and had a chance to play and start at quarterback in ninth grade, it was a big responsibility. Everybody in Meridian knows sports is life, especially football and basketball.”

He said he thought a couple of his Meridian teams were good enough to win state titles, but they came up short. Still, J’Mar displayed his talents. He often exceeded expectations, leading his team to a district championship as a freshman while throwing for 2,565 yards with a 62.8% completion percentage, 26 touchdowns and no interceptions as a senior. J’Mar’s dad said he knew his son would be good enough to play in college, but he also knew J’Mar had to drop weight to stay at quarterback at the next level. J’Mar conditioned his body over the course of his high school career, trading excess fat for muscle until he stood 6-foot-1, 215-pounds by his senior year. It was during that time when football and baseball scouts were targeting J’Mar, who 247Sports ranked as the No. 31 quarterback in the 2015 recruiting class. He was recruited by several Southeastern Conference schools, including Alabama, where his father played.

The Crimson Tide staff wanted J’Mar to switch to defense. Additionally, Ole Miss targeted him as a linebacker. Instead, he set his sights on Mississippi State, which offered him during his freshman year.

However, the dream to play for the Bulldogs never came to fruition because State pulled J’Mar’s offer in 2014 after two quarterbacks committed before him. He said he was planning on committing at State’s next game while on a visit that weekend, but he found out from a reporter that his offer was pulled.

“That was a bummer because I really did want to go to Mississippi State,” he said.

J’Mar wanted to either become a high draft pick in the Major League Baseball or play both of his sports in college at a high level, and he spent a few months prior to his senior year focusing exclusively on baseball so he might achieve one of those goals. That led the San Diego Padres to draft him in the 24th round of the 2015 MLB Draft, but the organization could not convince him to sign.

Louisiana Tech fans can thank Tim Rattay, LA Tech’s quarterbacks coach, for securing J’Mar’s signature. Before he knew the younger Smith, Rattay played against his father twice when he starred for LA Tech at quarterback.

“That added a comfortable home feeling for me picking a college that I wanted to be at,” J’Mar said.

He was grayshirted on the baseball team during his freshman year, but he made the LA Tech roster in the next year as a utility player after playing mostly catcher in high school. J’Mar said he wanted to pitch, but head football coach Skip Holtz would not let him.

“I understand you don’t want your starting quarterback pitching,” he said. “I really did want to pitch, but it was a great time being with the baseball guys. It gave me that feeling of playing the sport that I first loved.”

Playing two sports was “stress free” for J’Mar, though he did have to occasionally rush between spring football practices and baseball games. He said it was a dream to play two sports at once in college, but the dream did not last long.

A 2018 clean-up surgery on his left knee forced him to stop playing baseball, as he struggled to regain control of his quad muscles after the surgery. He says he still misses baseball every day.

On the football field, J’Mar redshirted his freshman year while learning the playbook and how to read defenses. He was mostly just taught to throw the ball to the open player in high school, but faster college defenders were more capable of locking on to his offensive weapons.

“Transitioning to quarterback was natural, honestly,” he said. “I didn’t have a problem with catching the ball, throwing the ball, throwing to the open guy, trying to make plays. It was when I got to college that I really understood the position of quarterback and reading defenses and taking control of the offense.”

Fortunately, J’Mar had some good coaching around him to help him develop. He took a liking to Holtz without knowing the full extent of the impact that the coach would have on his quarterbacking career.

“He’s a great person,” J’Mar said on Holtz. “He’ll try his best to do whatever he can for you, and he’ll got to bat for you. Literally to the last drop, he’ll go to war for you. I really could write a book about him.”

J’Mar went on to play in 44 football games across his college career, completing over 59% of his passes for 51 touchdowns to only 21 interceptions. He currently sits third in career passing yards in the LA Tech record books and fourth in passing touchdowns. The dual-threat signal-caller also rushed for 856 yards and 15 touchdowns in college.

However, J’Mar stumbled near the end of his senior season. The Bulldogs had an 8-1 record in 2019 before he was suspended for two regular season games in November for a violation of team policy.

Aaron Allen filled in at quarterback for those contests, but he was unable to pull off a win. The Bulldogs fell to Marshall 31-10 and the University of Alabama at Birmingham 20-14 before J’Mar returned from suspension to lead his team to a 41-27 victory over the University of Texas at San Antonio to close out the regular season.

“(I was) just going out and making sure that I could end on a good note,” he said. “I let a lot of people down, but life happens. You can’t live in the past. You have to move forward and get better.

The UTSA victory was just a warmup for a bigger fish, the University of Miami, which LA Tech faced in the Walk On’s Independence Bowl in Sherveport, Louisiana, to wrap the 2019 season. J’Mar tossed an interception, but he also threw for 163 yards and a touchdown and rushed for another touchdown to cap his college career with a 14-0 shutout of Miami.

After the season, J’Mar prepared for the NFL Draft with trainer Tom Shaw, who he said is a great quarterback coach and speed trainer. J’Mar said the transition to four months of eating right, doing little apart from training all day, and going to sleep at the same time each night down in Daytona Beach, Florida, was a peaceful transition from what he had become accustomed to.

Then came the 2020 NFL Draft, and with it, the opportunity for J’Mar to see his hard work pay off. He went undrafted, but the New England Patriots signed him as an undrafted free agent. However, he was never given much of a chance in New England, and he was cut from the team a few months later as he tried to adapt to a pro-style offense.

“I wish I could have gotten up there to New England so that I could have gotten a chance in the rooms in front of the coaches, to stay with the coaches, and to just be up there in the rooms in the facility. One thing I will say is the two suspensions hurt me,” J’Mar said.

He was then hired to coach quarterbacks at Huntington High School in Shreveport before he spent a brief stint as a practice roster quarterback for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League in 2021. J’Mar said he plans to return to coaching football when his gas tank eventually hits empty.

“It just gives us something to be around (football) when we can’t play,” he said. “I just wanted to be a servant-leader and help guys get to where they want to go. I was blessed to be around guys that helped me get to where I wanted to go, and where I’m still trying to go, so I just wanted to give back in a sense.”

Just as J’Mar was considering trying to make a professional team overseas, he was selected in the 12th round by the Birmingham Stallions in the 2022 USFL Draft. He said he was playing video games when he received a call from Holtz, who became the head coach and general manager of the Stallions in 2022, to tell J’Mar he was selected.

J’Mar was the second quarterback selected by the Stallions in the draft, as Alex McGough was selected with the sixth pick in the first round. McGough was given the starting job at the beginning of the season, but J’Mar was unfazed.

“Me and Alex were competing when we first got there,” J’Mar said. “I knew he was going to get drafted, and I don’t care about anybody getting drafted. Everybody puts their shoes on the same way, everybody puts their pants on the same way, it’s about who is going to compete and who is going to lead the team and be the best at the position.

McGough was injured in the 2022 season-opener, but J’Mar stepped into the starting role for much of the remainder of the season, leading them to a 9-1 record in the regular season before helping his team win the inaugural USFL Championship Game later that year. He was forced out of the championship game with a calf injury he sustained in the second half with McGough coming in to take the reins and lead the Stallions to a 33-30 victory over the Philadelphia Stars.

“It was a little bit of weight lifted off my shoulders, knowing the job’s not finished and knowing I’ve got a lot bigger things to accomplish,” J’Mar said on winning a championship in a professional league. “For (Holtz and I) to get a championship, not just a bowl win but a championship, it felt good.”

J’Mar thought the calf pain was from a cramp at first, and a couple plays later he thought he pulled a muscle. It turned out to be a light strain that he was able to rehab in the offseason, but his finger injury in game one of the 2023 season proved to be more serious.

“I put my hands on his shoulder pads, just blocking the outside pad, and that’s it,” J’Mar said on how he was injured. “We do run a lot of t-bone or under center situations, and I would have to catch an under-center snap, and at that point anything that touched my hand was coming out because it was sensitive to touch. In a sense, I pulled just about every tendon that’s in my left ring finger.”

J’Mar said he laughed at the team doctor that told him he pulled the tendons in his finger in the first game of the season after he was knocked out of last season’s final game. He said he was not stressed about the injury because it did not affect his throwing hand.

“I’m right-handed, so the money maker is still there,” J’Mar said in June. “The only thing is I need to make sure my strength level is back to my right hand, which is almost there. We’re about 80% there.”

McGough went on to lead the Stallions to a 8-2 record with J’Mar, out for the season, watching from the sidelines. He threw four touchdowns in the Stallions’ 28-12 victory over the Pittsburgh Maulers in the 2023 USFL Championship and won league MVP for his standout season.

J’Mar said he was ready to compete with McGough for the starting quarterback spot in 2024, but he may not have to. McGough was signed by the Green Bay Packers of the NFL in July.

J’Mar’s career has seen plenty of ups and downs already, and there are likely more of both ahead for the young quarterback. Another career high point may be in the near future for him, as it is likely he will compete with someone for the starting quarterback position of the two-time defending USFL champions once he heals from his latest injury.

Fortunately for J’Mar, competing may just be what he does best.