Dalvin Smith’s highlight-hogging habits are a running joke among his Western Kentucky teammates.

The sixth-year wide receiver from nearby Glasgow has put together enough jaw-dropping catches – and a touchdown pass – to blow up any potential hype tape WKU might wish to put together. His uncanny knack for making the biggest of plays in the biggest of moments has made Smith something of a recurring character on ESPN’s SportsCenter over the years.

Smith is at his most lethal in the postseason, where the 6-foot-3 wideout has shined bright in three straight bowl victories.

“I don’t really know the secret behind it,” Smith said. “The team makes jokes about that as well. They’re just like ‘Yeah, Bowl-Game Dal – we just know he’s going to go crazy.’ I’m just like, it’s not really as much the bowl games. It’s just I think people don’t take the bowl week as serious as we do. I think they just take that as ‘Oh, the season’s over. Let’s have a good time while we’re here and then we’ll worry about the game.’ I think that allows me to have the explosive games I have had the past two years.”

Smith has always been at his best in bowl games, going back to 2021 against Appalachian State in the Boca Raton Bowl when he tallied a season-high 45 receiving yards on two catches in the Tops’ 59-38 win.

The following year in the New Orleans Bowl, the onetime high school quarterback for the Scotties caught a touchdown and passed for another in WKU’s 44-23 victory against South Alabama. Smith finished that game with six catches for 145 yards, including a 44-yard touchdown, and also connected on a 25-yard TD pass to Jaylen Hall.

Smith somehow topped that last season in the Famous Toastery Bowl, hauling in three touchdown receptions to help spark an incredible 28-point comeback win for the Hilltoppers against Old Dominion. Down four touchdowns to start the game, the Tops rallied from 21 points down to start the second half to claim a 38-35 overtime victory.

Smith, who finished with a team-high nine catches for 77 yards and three scores, ensured the No. 2 spot on ESPN SportsCenter’s Top 10 with a one-handed grab on a 14-yard touchdown toss from redshirt freshman quarterback Caden Veltkamp for WKU’s first points against ODU.

“Over the years, ever since Caden’s been here, me and him always warm up together,” Smith said. “He knows the last one before we go in I’m like throw me a good ball and I’m going to go one-handed. So when I see him check me on that first fade, I see him check me and so I run the route. I see the ball in the air and I’m like that’s exactly the same way it is how I normally catch it in warmups – let me try it. It just sunk right into my hand.”

Smith struck again in the third quarter with another one-handed touchdown catch, an 18-yarder even he still can’t quite believe.

“The second one was pure luck,” Smith said. “I don’t know how I caught that one, I’m not going to lie. I was running across and I’m looking at (Veltkamp), and I see him throw it and I see the ball high and I’m like ‘Oh gosh,’ and I just throw my hand high and behind me and I feel it hit. I’m in pure shock that I caught it, and I’m still running with one hand not even tucked yet.

“Then I realize it and I’m like ‘Oh gosh, I gotta tuck the ball.’ Then I tuck it and look upfield and I see Easton (Messer) and and I’m like, ‘Oh, God – get there, get there. Keep your block E, I’m coming.’ Then at the last second, I just happened to slide in the end zone. That one was pure adrenaline, for sure.”

That touchdown catch still left WKU trailing by two touchdowns, but Smith said it created an undeniable sense that all the momentum had shifted to the Hilltoppers. The rest is Famous Toastery history – Veltkamp struck for three fourth-quarter touchdown passes, including a 14-yarder to Smith, and WKU tied the game with 19 seconds left – then won it in overtime on Lucas Carneiro’s 29-yard field goal.

“It’s honestly a great feeling hearing the defense jawing at each other when nothing is going right for them and we’re just clicking on every play, no matter what,” Smith said. “Offensive guys, we love it, hearing the defense jabber at each other.”

Smith has set off more than a few of those squabbles in his long career with WKU that began when he took a grayshirt year in 2018. He got into four games on special teams and used a redshirt the following season, then began to get work as a tight end in 2020. That year, he caught four passes for 58 yards, including a pair of touchdowns. A broken bone in his lower leg ended Smith’s season after just five games.

That broken tibia required a rod, nine screws and two wires to mend.

Smith shifted back to wide receiver and rehabbed the injury in time for the start of the 2021 season and tallied 11 catches for 151 yards, with five going for touchdowns.

“They asked me where I feel best at and I told them really anywhere in open space,” Smith said. “They didn’t really need me at tight end anymore because they brought in River Helms the year after that, so that really also pushed me out of the tight ends room and pushed me to full-time receiver. At that time, we had River, Josh Simon and Joey Beljan – with those three, they didn’t really need the smaller, athletic type.”

Through two seasons, really less than 1½, Smith had seven touchdowns among his 15 catches.

“That was the first year of the touchdowns,” Smith said. “It was a crazy ratio when you do all the math behind it.”

Smith took on an even more prominent role in 2022, tallying 35 catches for 443 yards and four scores as part of a high-flying passing attack led by the combination of quarterback Austin Reed to Malachi Corley.

Smith had his most season yet last year, finishing second on the team with 50 receptions for 513 yards and six touchdowns – and he also fired another touchdown pass – a 32-yard scoring strike to Craig Burt Jr.

Now in his final go-around with the Tops, Smith is getting in sync with another new starting quarterback. TJ Finley is the latest heading into Saturday’s season opener at Alabama, joining Smith’s personal list past season-opening starting QBs of Tyrrell Pigrome, Bailey Zappe and Austin Reed

“Yeah, the final chapter … I don’t know, it doesn’t seem real that it’s about to be the end,” Smith said. “It’s honestly pretty funny because they all just call me old man, or some people will be like, ‘Yeah, he’s 75 years old. He’s going on year 12 now.’ Just like jokes like that – I just run with it. Yeah, someone has to be the old guy on the team. This year it happened to be me. With that role, I’ve got to step up bigger – take the big role, not just on the offensive side but as a whole, the whole unit as offense and defense.”

So which is it, Bowl-Game Dal or Old-Man Dal?

“Either one’s fine – they both got a nice ring to it,” Smith said.