Ohio State QB Battle Is Over: Welcome to the J.T. Barrett Show

COLUMBUS, Ohio — As the cliche goes, hindsight is 20/20. It's easy to look back at events and make sense of them knowing exactly how they played out.

But with the latest development in Ohio State's unprecedented quarterback conundrum-turned-carousel, we finally seem to have reached the conclusion that was always meant to be.

Three days after benching Cardale Jones in favor of J.T. Barrett in the second half of the Buckeyes' 38-10 win over Penn State, Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer declared that Barrett will be his team's starting quarterback moving forward. The move was hardly a surprise to anyone who witnessed the No. 1 Buckeyes' beating of the Nittany Lions, which saw Barrett earn co-offensive player of the game honors after tallying 132 total yards (30 passing, 102 rushing) and four touchdowns (two passing, two rushing) in relief of Jones.

After declining to publicly commit to a starter on Monday, Meyer did so on Tuesday's Big Ten coaches teleconference.

"J.T. has earned the right to start Saturday at Rutgers," Meyer said. "It was a difficult decision."

To many, Barrett was the obvious choice—even prior to the season. After all, it was the reigning Big Ten Quarterback and National Freshman of the Year who led the Buckeyes to an 11-1 regular-season record a year ago, before a broken ankle opened the door for Jones to win three postseason games and capture the first-ever College Football Playoff championship.

If you follow the thought process that a player shouldn't lose his starting status because of injury, Barrett never lost his.

Paul Vernon/Associated Press

Only Meyer was following a different line of logic.

In Meyer's mind, since it was Jones who finished last season wearing college football's crown, he would be the one treated like a championship fighter who needed to be beaten decisively to lose his belt. And while he's denied as much publicly, it'd be understandable if he felt he owed Jones the first crack at starting this season after he opted to return to Ohio State rather than enter the NFL draft last spring.

Thus, it was Jones who started the Buckeyes' season-opening win against Virginia Tech and, despite a pair of in-game benchings in the second and third weeks of the season, continued to keep himself in Ohio State's starting lineup for the first seven weeks. But over the course of the past two weeks, the 6'5", 250-pounder has seen his role decrease—at first subtly and then dramatically—as Barrett became a more active part of the Buckeyes' game plan as a situational signal-caller.

And as opposed to earlier in the season, Barrett has made the most of his opportunities in recent weeks, tallying a total of seven touchdowns (five rushing, two passing) in his limited playing time.

"Sheer production," Meyer said when asked to explain why he was making the switch from Jones to Barrett. "Red-zone production and third-down production were the two areas that made the difference."

While many expected Barrett to beat out Jones for the Buckeyes' starting job this offseason—just as he did when Braxton Miller went down with a season-ending injury two weeks before the start of the 2014 campaign—perhaps they underestimated just how long of a leash Meyer would give Jones. Although his season stat line has been steady—1,242 yards, seven touchdowns, five interceptions on a 62.4 completion percentage—the strong-armed Jones has been ineffective in the downfield passing game, completing just three passes of 40 or more yards through seven games.

Steve Helber/Associated Press

With Jones struggling with what was supposed to be his greatest strength and Barrett having seemingly returned to his 2014 form in the past two weeks, the redshirt sophomore now seems like the obvious choice for Meyer. A more mobile quarterback, Barrett provides a dynamic in the Buckeyes' ground game that Jones doesn't, something Meyer sees as essential in his spread offense.

And while Meyer said Tuesday that he hopes to keep Jones active in Ohio State's game plan, he remained unsure of how exactly he would go about doing so. One would imagine, however, that Barrett would now receive a leash as long as Jones did, although the hope for Meyer is that conversation will never have to occur.

Then again, after the ups and downs this quarterback saga has seen in the past year, Meyer knows that there's very little he can count on at this point.

"Not necessarily," Meyer answered when asked if he was at ease with his decision. "I don't know if I'm ever at peace during the course of the season, because there's always stuff going on."

But with the way Barrett has played in the past two weeks, Ohio State's quarterback situation seems as settled as it ever has been. This was the solution all along—it just took longer than anticipated for the Buckeyes to arrive at it.

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.