Miami WR Jeremiah Payton missed mom and dad. Turns out he’s mature beyond his 17 years
University of Miami freshman Jeremiah Ozias Payton, 17 years young and one of the nation’s finest prep receivers, missed his mother and father when he arrived in Coral Gables from Jacksonville in January to start a new life as a college student and early football enrollee.
“Just lonely,’’ Payton said Tuesday. “Knowing mom and dad isn’t there. Knowing you can’t go to them when you need help. You gotta figure it out on your own. It’s really just the real world.
“ ...The first few weeks it was hard. I ain’t gonna lie. I’m a mama’s boy. But after that I was like, ‘Can’t leave, so I might as well get comfortable and make friends.’’’
Payton’s mother, Oshala, let out an oh-my-goodness type gasp when she learned the baby of her blended family of five daughters and two sons missed her that much.
“Oh my God. I want to cry,’’ Oshala, a relationship manager with JP Morgan Chase, said Tuesday during a phone interview. “Honestly, it was tough because he’s the last kid out of seven. I wanted to stay down there. I almost wanted to take a pay cut and take a job as a bank teller and move down to Miami. I had to pray. All of us were going through withdrawal. My husband lost 20 pounds.
“We realized we had to let him be a man.”
Thus far, Payton, who doesn’t turn 18 until August, appears to be doing a fine job of it, despite missing siblings Jamie, Quinette, Felixca, Dominique, Keeunna and Tristan (who previously played receiver at UCF).
“Mature, right?” said UM coach Manny Diaz. “And probably why he’s doing well on the field and kind of fitting in. If you didn’t know he was a 12th-grader right now, which is really what he should be, you’d feel he’s just one of the guys.
“The hardest part is taking that step up in terms of competitiveness — the pace of practice, college guys going up against you. He doesn’t look out of place, which shows who he is inside.’’
This 6-1, 186-pound affable teenager, a consensus four-star prospect by ESPN.com, Rivals.com and 247Sports.com, was rated the nation’s sixth-best wide receiver and overall player in Florida by ESPN, while 247Sports had him as the No. 12 wide receiver nationally.
An Under Armour All-American out of Fletcher High in Neptune Beach, a suburb of his home in Jacksonville, Payton played quarterback and receiver in high school until he switched to receiver full-time last season. He had 52 catches for 638 yards and five touchdowns, plus 13 carries for 231 yards and two touchdowns as a punt returner, according to Fletcher coach Kevin Brown.
Defensively, in his first stint as a safety last year, Payton finished with 42 tackles and two interceptions.
He chose Miami over dozens of offers, including Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi State and Oregon, and refused to officially visit other teams because he felt former receivers coach Ron Dugans, now with Florida State, as well as former head coach Mark Richt and other assistants, had been so loyal and actively caring.
“Everybody always loves him, whether they’re old or young,’’ said Oshala Payton, who described her son as a “mild-mannered gentleman, a real gentle guy. He don’t really turn up much unless he’s with his buddies. He’s just laid back. You couldn’t find better company, that’s how I would put it.”
Payton, considered UM’s top offensive signee this year, is rooming with fellow early enrollee and defensive end standout Jahfari Harvey, whose Pop Warner team once defeated 9-year-old Payton’s to advance to the national championship at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports at Walt Disney World, Oshala Payton said.
“The biggest transition’’ from high school, Payton said, “is workouts. High school, I’m not going to say I didn’t work out, but it wasn’t as stringent. It wasn’t real big, like how it is now.’’
He said he still hasn’t had that welcome-to-college moment — perhaps a big hit or a defining catch. “But coming in,’’ he said, “I was just like, ‘I gotta step my game up. Move faster, respond quicker, react quicker.’ Everything is a little different.’’
Teammates such as Brian Hightower, a sophomore receiver who came in last season as an early enrollee, has helped Payton “a lot.” He cited “the whole receiving corps,’’ naming KJ Osborn, Marshall Few, Mike Harley, Dee Wiggins as just some of his supporters. ...They’ve been taking me in, helping me, congratulating me, telling me when I’m wrong.
“They know I’m coming in young, coming in early,’’ Payton said. “It’s all fast. And just having somebody sit you down and tell you that you’re going to be fine, [that] you’ve got the talent to play with anybody. Knowing you got backup like that is amazing.”
Hightower said he “knows how it feels to be an early enrollee’’ and that Payton, who wears jersey No. 12, “is dominating.’’
“He’s playing up to our level,’’ Hightower said. “I’m proud of him.’’
Payton’s father, James, said he told Miami coaches during the recruiting process that Jeremiah would be “a very special child.’’
“He’s been chosen,’’ said James Payton, who owned a landscaping business for 23 years until he recently took a job as a firewatch/welder for BAE Systems at the Jacksonville shipyard. “Its just a blessing from God that we received Jeremiah. He’s very humble, very meek. He don’t walk around like, ‘I’m a superstar.’
“He’s just scratched the surface, so get ready, because you’re going to see some great things out of that young man, I promise. The University of Miami and City of Miami are going to see great things from Jeremiah Ozias Payton.’’
This story was originally published April 2, 2019 at 7:19 PM.
