The ever-churning turnover of players is part of the deal with college football. Coaches prepare for it every day through recruiting, but that doesn’t always make it easy.
After four years with J.T. Barrett at the helm of the Ohio State football team, the Buckeyes have spent the spring searching for his replacement.
Dwayne Haskins, Joe Burrow, and Tate Martell have each been given the opportunity to rise to the top of the quarterback battle, and it would appear that Urban Meyer is still waiting for one of them to emerge.
While there may not yet be a starter, Meyer is seeing the slow disappearance of the overwhelming void that was left by J.T. Barrett.
“The other guys have been here. There’s guys that have been here for a while, Joe and Dwayne,” Meyer said. “Dwayne not as long as Joe, but they’ve been here for a while. Yeah, you miss J.T., but early on in spring, the void was very obvious. I don’t feel that void as much anymore, and I’m hoping that closes by the time we get to the end of summer.”
With just one week remaining, all three quarterbacks are in the middle of the stretch run. Each of them brings their own take on the position, but there doesn’t seem to be much doubt about what it will take to win the job.
“Really what we want is we want great leaders,” said quarterbacks coach Ryan Day. “But when we look at quarterbacks and we evaluate quarterbacks, we’re looking for guys who are competitors, guys who are tough, guys who are leaders, guys who have great football intelligence, and then also guys who are great decision makers. You can tell that we have different shapes and sizes, but it’s our job as coaches to come up with the right plays to emphasize what they can do best.”
Urban Meyer and his two offensive coordinators have all won with different styles of quarterback. Braxton Miller led the Buckeyes to an undefeated season in 2012 with a limited passing attack. J.T. Barrett packaged running and passing together to shatter Ohio State records. Cardale Jones showed the highs and lows of what he could do when given the chance.
Each of them, however, provided the kind of leadership that was necessary to win.
That need for leadership is why a decision needs to be made, and — as the team showed in 2015 — probably sooner rather than later.
“I think it is really important because going into fall camp, you really need to start getting your ducks in a row as far as the team,” Burrow said. “And if you go into fall without knowing who’s going to be the quarterback, it’s really hard as a team to mesh.”