Crazy Quarterback Situation Could Be Ohio State's Kryptonite in 2015
COLUMBUS, Ohio — With less than two months to go until the start of the 2015 season, it's hard to find a reason to pick against Ohio State repeating as college football's national champion.
Consider all that head coach Urban Meyer has working in his favor:
- The Buckeyes return 14 combined starters on offense and defense from last year's championship squad.
- The Buckeyes possess arguably the best offensive player in the country in Heisman Trophy candidate Ezekiel Elliott.
- The Buckeyes lay claim to arguably the nation's top defensive player and potential future No. 1 overall pick Joey Bosa.
- The Buckeyes will face a manageable schedule that may not see them legitimately challenged until a Nov. 21 date with Michigan State in the second-to-last week of the regular season—a game that will be played in Columbus.
- The Buckeyes boast an embarrassment of riches at quarterback, football's most important position. Ohio State is the undisputed home of the deepest signal-caller depth chart in all of college football.
But whether that last point will wind up being a blessing or curse for the Buckeyes remains to be seen.
Whether you envy Meyer's upcoming decision between Cardale Jones, J.T. Barrett and Braxton Miller in an unprecedented starting-quarterback derby likely depends on if you're a "glass half-full" or "glass half-empty" type of person.
There's no debating whether Ohio State will have a qualified signal-caller behind center, regardless of who is ultimately named the Buckeyes' starter. But how the quarterbacks who wind up on the bench handle the situation could determine how the 2015 Buckeyes fare in their quest to repeat as national champions.
Having spent much of the offseason considering the dynamic he will be facing, Meyer knows as much.
"The human element's dangerous," Meyer admitted. "If [the competition's] about them, it can be very bad. If it's about the team—I think our culture right now wouldn't support something about them."
The three-time national champion head coach went on to state that he hasn't seen any signs of the quarterback competition having a negative effect on his team yet—quite the contrary. "It'd be much harder if they weren't good players, to be real honest," Meyer said. "Trying to move the football with a bad quarterback—you've got a bad deal. That's real difficult.
"Fortunately, I'm not really having to do that."
Maybe not, but the reality remains that as soon as Meyer names his starter, two qualified quarterbacks will head to the bench.
Between Jones (the national champion whose starting record consists of three postseason wins), Barrett (the reigning Big Ten Quarterback and National Freshman of the Year) and Miller (a two-time Big Ten MVP whose 2014 season ended before it started due to a shoulder injury), the Buckeyes' quarterback depth chart will look more like a preseason award watch list.
Meyer knows this, which is what will make how he handles the admittedly delicate situation so fascinating.
Factions forming across a roster with three quarterbacks who were each a part of a different recruiting class is also a real possibility, especially as soon as necks start turning once the starter—whoever it is—throws his first interception or even gets off to a slow start.
For what it's worth, Jones, Barrett and Miller have each said all the right things throughout the offseason, as have the teammates who—outside of the quarterbacks—have the most to gain and possibly lose from Meyer's decision.
In fact, Jones recently called Barrett his best friend on the team, and various Buckeyes have recently praised Miller's leadership while injured in 2014.
"Those guys are going to get after it, and they're going to compete and that's all we ask for from every position," said senior linebacker Joshua Perry. "They really do care a lot about each other, so it's not going to be one of those nasty competitions. Obviously, I have a lot of faith in our coaching staff."
As does Jones, who bypassed an opportunity to enter the NFL draft to return to Ohio State for the 2015 season. The same goes for Miller, who could have used his ability as a graduate transfer to spend his senior season somewhere else.
One—or possibly both—of these players will be starting the upcoming campaign on the bench, and it will be interesting to see whether that leads to feelings of regret from either one.
One possibility Meyer has already admitted to considering is a two-quarterback system, which would best work with Jones and Miller's diverse skill sets—Jones more of a traditional drop-back passer and Miller being more of a runner.
That would likely mean leaving Barrett on the bench, but as a redshirt sophomore, he enters 2015 with the least amount of urgency to play—even if he's coming off a year in which he broke the Buckeyes' single-season total offense record and the Big Ten's total touchdowns mark.
But that doesn't mean you should count out Barrett, either, especially with PredictionMachine.com's John Ewing indicating that advanced analytics give him an edge, and Meyer stating that the competition will be statistically based.
Perhaps the best blend of both passer and runner among Ohio State's trio of quarterbacks, Barrett might be the safest bet for Meyer to turn to—even if it means leaving two players with aspirations for the 2016 NFL draft on the bench.
No matter how you look at it, whichever choice the Buckeyes' staff lands on will lend itself to plenty of second-guessing.
That's the territory that comes with such an unprecedented situation.
"The only bad thing that I see so far is that there's one or two of the individuals that aren't going to play a lot," Meyer said. "That's terrible. All three of those guys have done major things. They're not like freshmen or rookies. All three have major impact on this program—major impact. You go down in Ohio State history, those names are going to be there."
That may be the only negative for Meyer at the moment, but it's also an unavoidable one. The possibility remains that Meyer will manage all three players' respective situations enough to satisfy them—or that the Buckeyes will simply overpower their opponents with their abundance of talent. But sooner or later, Ohio State will have to deal with the consequences of its coach's decision.
And how it does that could determine the fate of its national title aspirations.
The old cliche is that if you have two quarterbacks, you really don't have any. But what if you have three?
The Buckeyes are about to find out.
Ben Axelrod is Bleacher Report's Big Ten lead writer. You can follow him on Twitter @BenAxelrod. Unless noted otherwise, all quotes were obtained firsthand. All statistics courtesy of cfbstats.com. Recruiting rankings courtesy of 247Sports.
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