Ohio State quarterback Dwayne Haskins hasn’t announced whether he will be leaving for the NFL after the Rose Bowl or returning for his junior season, but the expectation is that January 1 will be his last game as a Buckeye.
If Haskins — who may be the top quarterback available in the NFL Draft — does leave, that means Ohio State will be searching for a starting quarterback for the second year in a row.
Last year, Haskins and Joe Burrow battled it out in the spring, with Haskins getting the nod and Burrow getting a new start in Baton Rouge.
Without Haskins, the battle for QB supremacy would be a 4-man race between Tate Martell, Matthew Baldwin, Chris Chugunov, and Dwan Mathis.
Martell is currently a redshirt freshman and spent the season as Haskins’ backup. Baldwin was a true freshman this season who spent much of the preseason recovering from a torn ACL one year ago. Chugunov is a graduate transfer from West Virginia who was brought in to provide depth. Mathis will be a true freshman in 2019, but he will be enrolling early, so he’ll at least get a look in the spring.
Ultimately, however, the competition is expected to come down to Martell and Baldwin.
Martell completed 23-of-28 passes this season for 269 yards and a touchdown. He also finished third on the team with 128 yards rushing on 22 attempts with two touchdowns.
Baldwin, meanwhile, has yet to see action in a game. He was healthy enough to play around the middle of the season, but the scores never really allowed him an opportunity to play.
Following the Big Ten Championship Game against Northwestern, Baldwin was asked point-blank if he was going to win the quarterback job in 2019.
“I can’t answer that question,” he said. “I’d love to. I’m going to compete as hard as I can, whether Dwayne comes back or not. Who knows. He’s had such a great season. That will be all up to him. I’m going to compete as if I’m the starter. I’m going to prepare as if I’m the starter. Hopefully I can win the job.”
The tough part about Baldwin’s season wasn’t necessarily being injured, but rather the lack of snaps for a third quarterback. He wasn’t yet cleared to practice anything other than 7-on-7 drills during the summer, so he missed reps during fall camp. During the season, the team is immediately involved in game prep each week, so there aren’t reps available for the guys who aren’t going to play.
On Sundays, the young guys are given snaps during practice against other young guys, but the bowl practices going on right now will be Baldwin’s first opportunity to actually show everyone on the team what he can do.
“Yeah, I’d say so,” he said. “In front of the whole team, with everyone, padded up, I’d say so. In camp, a lot of threes get reps, but then during the season, it’s more preparing the ones and twos. It’s a huge opportunity and you’ve got to take advantage of stuff like that here because they’ve got guys coming in here so often.”
Baldwin feels as good physically as he has since his injury, and the mental reps he has gotten this season have prepared him as much as possible. These bowl practices will be a glimpse of what he can do, but the rest of the offseason will dictate just how physically and mentally ready he will be in order to compete to be Ohio State’s starting quarterback.
“Yeah, I feel pretty good right now about that,” he said. “But this offseason, as far as strength things, Coach Mick [Marotti] always says you’ve got to be physically, mentally, and emotionally ready to play. And so physically, that will be a huge part of this offseason. Mentally, I’ve gotten so much better this season.”
A year ago at this time, Joe Burrow was talking about transferring if he didn’t win the starting job in the spring. The competition turned into one of the biggest college football stories during the spring.
That’s nothing new, and is pretty much life at Ohio State.
Baldwin believes he is prepared for whatever comes next, but he’s not going to let it get into his head.
“It is a huge deal at a prestige awesome program like this,” he said. “It’s a dream of mine to play at an awesome place like this and compete for Big Ten Championships and National Championships. So I try not to think about it too much or else it will get to your head and consume you. You’ve got to just focus on what you are doing at the moment.”
And at this moment, Baldwin is finally getting his first opportunity to practice against the veterans.
Regardless of how it goes, it will be a learning experience and one that is only going to make Baldwin better.
If things go well, however, then consider Matthew Baldwin’s first real audition to be the Buckeyes’ starter in 2019 a very solid step in the right direction.