This Sacramento-area football player is a 6-foot-7 tight end who’s facing a big test

Like so many others, Cody Smith had to get creative with his workouts during the pandemic. He pushed a car up and down his neighborhood street, with his sisters in the front seats, to get his legs going. He’d sift through a pile of scrap metal on his family’s 2.5-acre property to find a 2-inch metal pipe he could use for bench pressing, curls and triceps extensions.

To those who don’t know him, Smith could easily be mistaken for grown man. He’s all of 6-foot-7 and 240 pounds. Neighbors watching him push a vehicle up and down a road in Galt, some 25 miles south of Sacramento in California’s central valley, might wonder if he’s a college basketball player home for the summer, or even a pro athlete saving some money by staying with his parents.

They’d be mistaken. Smith, who plays tight end and defensive end, is entering his senior year at Liberty Ranch High School.

“You look at the old team pictures and he’s always a head, head-and-a-half taller than every teammate he’s had,” Corey Smith, Cody’s father said.

Smith passes the eye test of a sure-fire college prospect. He’s big, strong, athletic and has a second-to-none work ethic marveled at by those close to him. It’s why he’s garnering interest from college recruiters from Ivy League schools to Division I programs in Southern California.

But there’s one problem. Smith has played just one varsity football game.

Which makes Smith somewhat of a mystery.

“I’m really motivated,” Smith said. “That pushed me through this year to work even harder.”

The mystery, explained

Smith was expecting to play on Liberty Ranch’s varsity football team as a sophomore in 2020, where he likely would have been one of the team’s best players. But the pandemic wiped out the season. His junior campaign in 2021 ended early because of a knee injury after just one catch for 6 yards. (His bad luck continued when his recent basketball season was cut short due to a broken hand, which he says he’s fully recovered from.)

Smith has been on the camp circuit this offseason. He’s gone to football camps at UCLA, UC Davis, Sacramento State, Redlands and San Diego State, where coaches and recruiters have shown interest and asked questions about the kid who looks the part of a stud tight end but still has to prove his abilities match his stature.

He’s garnered interest from BYU, San Diego State, Nevada, Washington State, Arizona State and Davis despite missing all but a handful of snaps during his junior season, considered the most important season for top-level prospects.

He’s already received scholarship offers from the US Military Academy at West Point and Louis and Clark, but is hoping more come after he shows what he can do on the field.

“Obviously they’re looking for my senior season, obviously because there’s not much film to look at,” Smith said. “But they saw me at the football camps which ... I’m grateful for, for the work I put in. They’re like, ‘Hey, let’s see you in pads, let’s see you for a full season and see what you can do.’”

All of which means there’s a lot on the teenager’s shoulders heading into his final high school football season. The pandemic and knee injury robbed him of an opportunity to go into his senior year with clarity on what his future holds. Which also means Smith needs to balance sky-high expectations with not trying to do too much.

Fortunately, Smith already had those conversations with people who would know. Corey, his father, was once the ninth-ranked tight end recruit in the country. He played at UC Berkeley after growing up in Galt. His wife Janet was a walk-on basketball player at Berkeley who wound up earning a scholarship. She was known as one of the team’s hardest workers.

“We’ve been telling him from a young age, don’t let the outside pressure get to you,” Corey Smith said. “Do the best you can, but try to keep the outside pressure out of there and focus on yourself.”

Leading Liberty Ranch

While he’s waiting to make his mark in games, Smith has been doing everything he can to set the tone for the Hawks football program. After all, Smith has played with a number of his teammates since he was 10 years old, playing for the Junior Hawks feeder program to the high school.

“Cody fits right in with the entire team,” head coach Warren Schroader said. “We’ve had an amazing spring, an amazing summer. All the kids have bought in. They’ve used that pent-up COVID energy to get out here and start working really hard. I’ve been around for a long time and we’ve probably had the best offseason I’ve ever seen at this school. The numbers are really high, and then Cody and his work ethic provides and example for all the new kids that are coming out to play football.

“They see him working hard and not making excuses to miss the work outs and they’re here wanting to buy in. So it’s a great example for the rest of the team.”

Corey Smith said his son’s work ethic was apparent from an early age. He would do his stretches, sit-ups and push-ups every night before his bedtime routine. On top of building his own workout equipment with scrap metal and wood, he would get his teammates together to throw the ball around, do cone drills and work on footwork.

Cody Smith said his father, who works as a high-voltage lineman, ingrained the work ethic at a young age that has him looking at a very real chance to receive his college education by way of football scholarship. The father and son would often work on cars or various other projects throughout Smith’s childhood and adolescence.

“He wanted me to work at a younger age, help him out,” Smith said, “see the struggles, go through things in life. If you had an obstacle, you had to go around it. If this wrench doesn’t work, try another one. Keep on pushing forward. So I think that helped me a lot.”

This story was originally published July 24, 2022 at 5:00 AM.