Look Out, Deshaun Watson: J.T. Barrett Primed to Challenge as Best QB in CFB

COLUMBUS, Ohio — J.T. Barrett's 2016 debut started the way you would have thought it would—with a touchdown pass.        

He just happened to throw it to the wrong team.

Fortunately for No. 6 Ohio State, the Buckeyes quarterback had a school-record seven more scores left in his pocket.

If there were any questions left about whether the final two games of Barrett's otherwise up-and-down 2015 campaign were an aberration, the junior signal-caller put them to rest on Saturday with a 379-yard, seven-total touchdown showing in Ohio State's season-opening 77-10 blowout of the Bowling Green Falcons. All afternoon, Barrett looked like the player who shattered records as a freshman before slumping as a sophomore and ultimately bouncing back to end last season with impressive outings in wins over Michigan and Notre Dame.

This opponent may have been mid-major, but for now, the Buckeyes can consider Barrett's momentum maintained.

"He's a cagey veteran. There's a lot of things happening in his football career already," OSU head coach Urban Meyer said after the game. "I thought J.T. played great."

For all the preseason hype surrounding Clemson's Deshaun Watson, Barrett certainly made a strong case for re-entering the conversation to be considered college football's top quarterback in 2016. While Watson entered the season the Heisman Trophy favorite at 4/1 odds (via Odds Shark), Barrett's Heisman hopes ranked fifth at 10/1, but shouldn't be much further behind his Clemson counterpart now following Saturday's seven-touchdown showing.

When it comes to Watson, Barrett embraces the competition between himself and last season's third-place Heisman vote-getter, although he insists it to be of the friendly variety.

"Those are my guys. Those are my boys. I talk to Deshaun," Barrett said of Watson and college football's impressive crop of quarterbacks. "We're all competitors. They compete like me as well. You want to go out there and play your best and be the best, so that's all that is."

As of Saturday afternoon—and before Watson ever took the field for his 9 p.m. ET kickoff with Auburn—Barrett appeared to possess a decisive advantage.

Kirk Irwin/Getty Images

And for a roster possessing no shortage of uncertainty, Barrett's return to Heisman hopeful form has been an obvious welcome addition in Columbus. Despite replacing eight starters, 2,424 rushing yards and 1,979 receiving yards from last year's team, the Ohio State offense looked nearly infallible against the Falcons, tallying a school-record 776 yards in its 2016 debut.

The biggest reason why these Young Bucks barely missed a beat? Their veteran quarterback—although his afternoon started far from perfect as he tossed a pick-six to Bowling Green defensive back Brandon Harris on Ohio State's opening drive.

"I went out there and tried to be aggressive, and I threw it straight to him," Barrett recalled of his lone interception on the day, which saw him admittedly stare down his target—and the defender right in front of him. "I was so upset. Not the fact that it was a pick, but that he went to the house with it.

"I tried to make up for it."

It didn't take long for Barrett to do just that.

On the ensuing drive, the Wichita Falls, Texas, native found redshirt freshman K.J. Hill for a precisely placed 47-yard touchdown toss. Less than six minutes later, he connected with senior Dontre Wilson for a 25-yard score.

A 79-yard catch-and-run to Curtis Samuel closed the first quarter, and by the end of the second half, he had found Noah Brown in the end zone before rushing one in himself. Additional touchdown throws to Samuel and Wilson followed in the second half, where saw Barrett's record-breaking day came to an end midway through the third quarter with the game already in hand.

In all, the star from the Lone Star State completed 21 of his 31 pass attempts for 349 yards and six scores, distributing the ball to six different targets while adding 30 yards and a touchdown on the ground on his own.

"We definitely want to spread the wealth out," Barrett said. "There's only one football, but I try to get it into the playmakers' hands. We are deep at receiver; a lot of guys can rotate in...I'm just trying to do my best to get it to the right person."

Kirk Irwin/Getty Images

Talent has never been Barrett's issue, dating back to record-breaking 2014 that saw him lead Ohio State to the cusp of the College Football Playoff. But his big day on Saturday was a far cry from where he stood a year ago—second on the Buckeyes' depth chart behind Cardale Jones, in what was ultimately a distraction-filled and inconsistent 2015 for the then-sophomore signal-caller.

Eventually reinserting himself into the starting lineup and closing 2015 on a high note with wins over the Wolverines and Fighting Irish, those games—as well as Saturday's showing—were reminiscent of Barrett's breakthrough 2014 campaign. Between his accuracy, arm strength and mobility, it's been hard to find a weakness in Barrett, who has now played like one of the top players in the country at his position for three consecutive games.

Thanks in large part to Barrett's bounce back efforts, the Buckeyes looked like one of the nation's top teams at the end of last season. And while the faces around him may have changed and the competition was far from fierce, Ohio State leaves Week 1 of the 2016 sharing a similar sentiment.

As a result, Barrett appears primed to challenge Watson—as well as Oklahoma's Baker Mayfield, Ole Miss' Chad Kelly and UCLA's Josh Rosen among others—for the right to be called college football's top quarterback.

Just as his early-game interception showed, it's not how you start, but how you finish. When it comes to the race to be the best at his position, Barrett just jumped out to an impressive head start.

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. Recruiting and class ratings courtesy of 247Sports' composite ratings.