As a quarterback, you can expect to be hated by the opposition. The quarterback is the face of the team, after all, and hate starts at the head down.
As the Ohio State quarterback, that reach can go from coast to coast. J.T. Barrett knows that and has experienced that. And when you have a 4-0 record against Michigan as a starter, that hate also stretches pretty far north.
Barrett will leave Ohio State with more records than a jukebox, and his 4-0 slate against Michigan is something that no other starting quarterback in school history can match.
A lifetime of records in a four-year span. Barrett has seen it all at Ohio State, and on Friday he will be playing in his final game as a Buckeye.
The words are as foreign to read as they are to type.
Final game.
Barrett’s success at OSU has been enough to drive opposing fans mad.
He has also driven some Ohio State fans mad along the way, and he knows it.
Learn to love the hate
— Jt Barrett (@JT_theQB4th) March 19, 2016
“I feel like I’ve been successful here being a quarterback at Ohio State,” he said recently. “There’s a lot of people that don’t like me, and don’t like the fact that it’s me playing the position, they want somebody else doing it. There’s a lot of negativity coming with the production that I’ve had.”
A lot of that negativity can be found on social media, which gives people internet muscles. And that’s probably why Barrett has had the tweet above pinned on his Twitter account for a while now.
Why the negativity?
Too many interceptions in losses? Too many carries in losses? Simply too many losses?
And sometimes familiarity breeds contempt.
There are some people nodding right along with the past few sentences.
Barrett knows there are people out there who don’t like him, but he doesn’t let it affect him negatively. In fact, he has grown to like it.
“I feel like you could have that weigh on you as a person, or you can learn to embrace and like people hating on you,” he said.
“For example, going into an opponent’s stadium, people cussing me out, throwing things at me, I kinda like it. I’m honestly doing something well at my job and you don’t like me for it, and I like that.”
On Friday December 29, Barrett will have one last day on the job as Ohio State’s starting quarterback. One last opportunity to be hated. This time, however, he’s trying to make sure it’s just USC fans cussing him out.