Senior Bowl Hometown Hero: USM running back returns to Mobile on business

Unlike most high school football stars, Southern Miss running back Ito Smith won’t have to wait ten years for his reunion. In fact, it’ll be going on all week in Mobile for the 2018 Reese’s Senior Bowl.
So at his four-year homecoming, Smith returns to Mobile as one of the most accomplished running backs in college football history with his sights dead set on the NFL draft.
Four weeks ago, Ito Smith played his final game for the Black and Gold, but it wasn’t the last game of his college career. “It’s always been the dream, man, you know? Coming into the season that was one of my goals was to get a Senior Bowl invite and I got it, so I’m just happy to be here, man. I’m going to take advantage of it.”
That’s exactly what he did during his first practice with the south team on Tuesday, collecting ankles with his precise route running and hitting the hole with that next level burst he so often displayed at USM. “It’s business, you know? When I was at the airport there were scouts on the plane with me, boarding the plane with me so it’s been business the whole way, man, since Monday morning when I woke up.”
Eventually, the scouts will wake up, too. “I’m hearing a little bit of everything, mid-round, late, a lot of stuff so it doesn’t really matter right now. This is what matters, being here this week.”
But this business trip version of attending the Senior Bowl is vastly different than the kind of experience the hometown kid used to know. “I remember coming to meet the players, coming to the games, you know? Just trying to come and meet the players with my lists of autographs I wanted to get, you know? Sometimes not getting them all, sometimes getting them. Yeah, I’m going to sign all of them autographs, whoever wants an autograph I’m going to sign it because I know I’ve been that kid before.”
Smith says he went to the Senior Bowl every year, even as a standout at McGill Toolen High School, and he grew up to be exactly what he idolized. “It just shows what hard work can get you, you know? When I was at Southern Miss I worked really hard.”
Hard enough to become the first Golden Eagle in the Senior Bowl since Jamie Collins in 2012, the school’s all-time leader in all-purpose yards, and total touchdowns, and one of ten FBS players to rack up 4,000 career rushing yards as well as 1,000 receiving and then whatever he does Saturday can be added to that list. “I’m going to try to ball out.”
Smith says he’s talked to a lot of NFL teams leading up to Saturday’s Senior Bowl at 1:30 p.m. His agent is former USM wide receiver Casey Martin of Armed Sports.