Texas A&M Football Adds Son of NFL Legend Via Transfer Portal

Texas A&M Football Adds EJ Smith, Son of Emmitt Smith, to RB Room

In the 2020 recruiting class, Texas A&M football was hard up for running backs. After the transfer of Jashaun Corbin, Deneric Prince, and Jacob Kibodi, the only backs available for the Aggies were Isaiah Spiller and Ainias Smith, who had mostly played receiver up to that point. Given this fact, Texas A&M football was hard after several backs in the class, one of which was Dallas Jesuit's EJ Smith.

Smith, a four-star back, had excellent pedigree—after all, he is the son of the all-time leading NFL rusher, Emmitt Smith. His own skills were undeniable, as well. In the end, though, despite the Aggies going after him strongly, Smith ended up choosing Stanford. For their part, Texas A&M football had to take only one high school back in the class: a diminutive low four-star speedster out of Fort Bend Marshall by the name of Devon Achane.

Fast forward four years, and Smith has graduated from Stanford and is now in the portal. During his time in Palo Alto, he has seen little usage, but still averaged over 5 YPC in his limited attempts. He is an excellent receiver out of the backfield, with a very developed skill set as a pass-catcher, so he was often used as a third-down back for the Cardinal.

Once it became known that he was in the portal, Aggies everywhere were abuzz. This was a priority target back in that class, and so he was quite familiar with College Station. Not long after visiting campus, as has been the case with Elko and priority portal targets, Smith was committed to the Aggies, going public with his decision last night.

It also had to be cool for Aggies, especially those who are Cowboys fans, to see Emmitt tweeting about his son's decision. This is the second of the Smith children to attend Texas A&M, with EJ's sister Rheagan coming to College Station to play soccer.

Smith brings a specific skill set to a solid stable of backs for Texas A&M football. His receiving ability will provide the Aggies with a lot of options; while Rueben Owens has flashed high-level ability as a receiving back, he isn't quite as skilled yet as Smith is in that regard. Hopefully, the Aggies will be able to unlock Smith's true potential as a runner as well, given that he was somewhat underutilized at Stanford.

This is another big time pickup for Mike Elko and Texas A&M football. The new head man for the Aggies just keeps rolling, and it looks like we've got more commitments coming down the pike soon.