Chris Smith (September 8, 1999) is an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wit ...

running back A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive handoffs from the quarterback to rush the ball, to line up as a receiver to catch the ball, and block. The ...

for the

Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns The Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns are the athletic teams of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. The college has been competing athletically since 1901. The Ragin' Cajuns compete in NCAA Division I, fielding 16 varsity teams. Nickname The un ...

Early life and high school

Smith was born on September 8, 1999, in

Meridian, Mississippi Meridian is the seventh largest city in the U.S. state of Mississippi, with a population of 41,148 at the 2010 census and an estimated population in 2018 of 36,347. It is the county seat of Lauderdale County and the principal city of the Meri ...

. He attended Nanih Waiya High School, being named the 2016 "Mr. Football".

College career

2018–2019

Smith committed to the

University of Louisiana at Lafayette The University of Louisiana at Lafayette (UL Lafayette, University of Louisiana, ULL, or UL) is a public research university in Lafayette, Louisiana. It has the largest enrollment within the nine-campus University of Louisiana System and the s ...

, spending his first year as a redshirt and appearing in four games. As a redshirt freshman in 2019, Smith appeared in every game of the season and placed fourth on the roster with 334 rushing yards. He ran for four touchdowns on the year.

2020–2021

In 2020, Smith appeared in all 11 games for the school and served as their

return specialist A return specialist or kick returner is a player on the special teams unit of a gridiron football team who specializes in returning punts and kickoffs. There are few players who are exclusively return specialists; most also play another positio ...

and third running back. As a returner, Smith made 23 kick returns for 617 yards and two touchdowns, and twice earned conference special teams player of the week honors. He finished the season with 1,137 all-purpose yards, 30th most in the nation. Following the season, he was named a first-team

All-America The All-America designation is an annual honor bestowed upon an amateur sports person from the United States who is considered to be one of the best amateurs in their sport. Individuals receiving this distinction are typically added to an All-Am ...

selection by

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

and

247Sports.com 247Sports is an American network of websites that focus mainly on athletic recruitment in college football and basketball. It is owned and operated by Paramount. The website hosts a large network of team-specific subsites, with each subsite b ...

. In 2021, Smith earned the starting running back role and led the team with 855 rushing yards on the year. In a 28–27 win over

Arkansas State Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

, he ran for a career-high 238 yards and two touchdowns.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Chris 1999 births Living people American football running backs Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns football players Players of American football from Mississippi