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FOOTBALL: Landslide of awards bestowed upon Ithaca’s Smith this week, StateChamp’s Mr. Football among them
ITHACA – It’s been quite a week for Ithaca football star and all-state senior quarterback Travis Smith.
He pretty much did it all.
Last weekend at Ford Field, he extended his team’s epic winning streak, combining for over 350 yards and registering five touchdowns (247 yards and four touchdowns through the air and 125 and one score on the ground) to lead Ithaca to a 41-22 clobbering of Clinton and capture the program’s fourth straight Division 6 state championship.
Then over the course of the week, he collected a litany of prestigious postseason honors, including being crowned the 2013 StateChamps Network Mr. Football and winning the MLive and Gatorade Player of the Year awards for the state of Michigan.
Committed to the University of Toledo for his college pigskin, Smith (6-foot-3, 215 pounds) is a pure drop-back passer with excellent accuracy and a good arm. He never lost a game starting under center at the high school level in three years.
This fall, he connected on 170 of 237 pass attempts for 3,264 yards and 42 touchdowns (he ran in another seven, too).
Smith became only the 14th player in MHSAA history to surpass the 3,000-yard plateau in a single season and his 88 career touchdowns is second-most all-time in the annals of the state.
In his three years as a starter, he racked up more than 6,000 passing yards and even though he’s not known as a running signal-caller, he almost reached 2,000 yards on the ground.
Of Ithaca’s monumental 56-game win-streak, Smith has won more than three quarters of the Yellow Jackets’ games as the team’s starting field general, going a perfect 40-0.
"When you think about it, it’s pretty crazy," said Smith after his squad’s victory at Ford Field last weekend of looking back on he and his team’s unblemished record. "I wasn’t thinking something like this was possible when I got here, but it’s an accomplishment I will always cherish. A lot of different players and coaches contributed to every thing I achieved and I appreciate it more than they will ever know and more than I can ever tell them."
