What Notre Dame Can Learn from Ohio State's 2015 QB Conundrum

COLUMBUS, Ohio — As spring practice came to a close and Ohio State's upcoming quarterback battle began to dominate the talk of the college football world, Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly made a headline of his own when he offered an opinion pertaining to the Fighting Irish's own signal-caller situation.

"I would take our two [quarterbacks] over Ohio State’s," Kelly said, bringing up the Buckeyes unprompted, per BlueAndGold.com's Andrew Owens. "In terms of depth, I don’t know if anybody has a better situation than we do in terms of the two quarterbacks we have."

At the time, Kelly's comments were met with a side eye by many.

After all, who could have a better quarterback depth chart than Ohio State's, which featured national championship winner Cardale Jones, reigning Big Ten Quarterback and National Freshman of the Year J.T. Barrett and a two-time Big Ten MVP in Braxton Miller?

But with the 2015 season having come to a close and Notre Dame preparing to face the Buckeyes in the Fiesta Bowl, Kelly's seemingly bold claim may have proven itself to be true.

As Urban Meyer and Ohio State can attest to, however, that can be both a blessing and a curse.

This season, a loaded quarterback depth chart worked out well for the Fighting Irish, with DeShone Kizer taking the reins from Malik Zaire after a broken ankle brought the Notre Dame starting quarterback's season to an end after just two games.

Kizer responded by completing 63.4 percent of his passes for 2,600 yards, 19 touchdowns and nine interceptions, adding 499 rushing yards and nine touchdowns on the ground while leading the Fighting Irish to an 8-2 record and subsequent Fiesta Bowl berth in his 10 starts.

Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press

With the redshirt freshman Kizer and junior Zaire—as well as former 4-star prospect and true freshman Brandon Wimbush—each slated to return in 2016, any claim Kelly makes to having the deepest quarterback room in college football next spring will be taken more as fact than hot take.

So as Kelly meets Meyer for a postgame handshake on New Year's Day, it might behoove the Fighting Irish head coach to seek advice on how to handle such a quarterback conundrum.

If anything, Kelly could stand to learn from some of the mistakes Meyer has made over the course of the past year.

While the Buckeyes' run to an 11-1 regular season would be considered a successful season by many reasonable measures, Ohio State ultimately fell short of putting itself in a position to defend its College Football Playoff championship this winter.

A big part of that was a quarterback controversy that seemed to hang over the team throughout the season and never truly sorted itself out until the very end.

"It was challenging. I'm not going to say it was the easiest thing in the world," Barrett said. "We did our best to try to make it work."

With Miller exiting OSU's quarterback picture with a summer transition to wide receiver, Jones and Barrett battled throughout fall camp for the right to be the Buckeyes' starting signal-caller. Ultimately, it was Jones who got the nod in Ohio State's season opener, but Meyer's quarterback conundrum was far from over.

After benching Jones mid-game in two of his first four starts, Meyer turned to Barrett first as a red-zone quarterback, then as a situational signal-caller and finally as his full-time starter.

A charge for operating a vehicle while intoxicated led to a one-game suspension for Barrett and cracked the door open for Jones to regain his starting job in early November, but Meyer opted to stick with Barrett for the final three games of the season.

Joe Robbins/Getty Images

Although Barrett eventually found himself as Ohio State's undisputed QB1 by season's end, neither he nor Jones seemed to full adjust to being jerked in and out of the Buckeyes' lineup on a moment's notice.

That was evidenced by an OSU passing attack that ranked 104th in the country, averaging 187 yards per game despite the Buckeyes returning seven offensive starters from last year's national title team.

"[Cardale]'s number and my number could be called at any time," Barrett said. "You just have to prepare like you're the starting quarterback, and I think we both did that."

Nevertheless, it's likely not a coincidence that in Ohio State's lone loss of the season—a 17-14 defeat at the hands of Michigan State—it was its inconsistency in the passing game that hurt it most, with the Buckeyes totaling just 46 yards through the air against the Spartans.

After the game, Meyer didn't deny that Barrett's lack of reps early in the season may have been what led to the undoing of Ohio State's national title aspirations in the long run.

For what Kelly might be about to embark on when it comes to his quarterbacks, that could prove to be a valuable lesson.

The old axiom is that if you have two quarterbacks, you don't have any, and that certainly seemed to be the case in Columbus this season.

Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press

It's unlikely Kelly would actually seek out Meyer for advice on his situation—Who knows if Meyer would even be willing to share?—but if the Buckeyes head coach did have thoughts to share, they would likely center on the need for Notre Dame to pick—and stick—with one quarterback.

So often this year, Meyer treated having two accomplished signal-callers as a luxury that gave him the ability to turn to an alternative when his starter wasn't playing to his potential, a thought process that might have ultimately been the the Buckeyes' undoing this season.

The circumstances in Notre Dame's impending quarterback controversy aren't as clear-cut, and the larger sample size of the younger Kizer's play compared to the three starts in Zaire's career might make this a more clear-cut case.

Neither player is as accomplished as Jones and Barrett were heading into this season, which is what made Kelly's claim of having better quarterbacks than the Buckeyes seem so unlikely to be true.

Perhaps that was the case and the Ohio State quarterbacks' subpar play was just a result of the set of unusual circumstances surrounding them. The result of the Fiesta Bowl may very well determine that, but regardless of who wins, Kelly would be wise to study Meyer's handling of the Buckeyes quarterbacks this season.

Then again, even if it doesn't work out for Notre Dame when it comes to its national title aspirations in 2016, a New Year's Day Six bowl game isn't the worst alternative.

"It didn't work out so bad," Barrett said with a smile.

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.