Texas A&M redshirt sophomore quarterback Nick Starkel announced on Wednesday that he would be transferring from Jimbo Fisher’s program. On Thursday, a report from Travis Brown of MyAggieNation.com claims that Starkel is looking at Ohio State as a final destination.
Texas A&M QB Nick Starkel will hit the transfer portal any minute now & will not participate in spring practice, he said. Will complete 120 hours before July & should be on new campus July 1. Said he's looking at Duke, Ohio State, SMU & Arizona (former HC Kevin Sumlin).
— ?????? ?. ????? (@Travis_L_Brown) January 23, 2019
Starkel will graduate in June and have two years of eligibility remaining. He will be eligible immediately for 2019.
As a redshirt freshman in 2017, he played in seven games, starting five. He threw for 1,793 yards and 14 touchdowns that season, including a performance in the Belk Bowl where he completed 42-of-63 passes for 499 yards.
This past season, Starkel played in just five games as a backup to starter Kellen Mond. Mond started every game and threw for over 3,000 yards.
Starkel appears to want to transfer somewhere that he can play, and all four schools on his list will be replacing their starting quarterback from 2018.
For Ohio State, Starkel could be an ideal fit. Head coach Ryan Day wants four scholarship quarterbacks on the roster, but with the transfer of Tate Martell, they are down to three. The Buckeyes will then be right back in this situation next year when Chugunov graduates, so landing a grad transfer with two years of eligibility would solve that issue before it even happens.
If they can convince Starkel to be a Buckeye, that would give them a 2020 quarterback roster of Matthew Baldwin, Justin Fields, Starkel, and current 2020 commit Jack Miller. Of course, this is under the premise that no other Buckeye quarterbacks transfer between now and then.
Starkel’s experience would also be good for competition in the fall. Even though Fields and Baldwin will compete for the job in the spring, Starkel would have more experience than the other three quarterbacks combined.
It might be tough to convince Starkel that he’ll get a legitimate shot to play at Ohio State, but on the outside, he appears to be exactly what the Buckeyes would be searching for to solidify their quarterback room.
There would also be some bit of irony in Starkel replacing Tate Martell, as Martell once DM’d someone that he was going to sign with Texas A&M out of high school because the only quarterback on the roster was Starkel and he knew that Starkel posed no threat to him.
Those aren’t exact quotes, but you can read more about it below.
— Nicholas Starkel (@NickStarkel) January 4, 2019