Ohio State Football: Unstable QB Play Will Drop Buckeyes to Bottom of Big Ten

Ohio State's stranglehold on the Big Ten conference is going to come to an abrupt end this season, thanks to a quarterback controversy that will not have a happy ending one way or another. Braxton Miller and Joe Bauserman are not the answers for this team, and they will fail to make a bowl game this season because of their inability to lead this offense.

The Buckeyes were able to mask their quarterback deficiencies in their first two games because they were playing Akron and Toledo. But, even in the game against Toledo, it was clear that something was not right with the offense, and the defense had to bail them out at the end of the game.

Everything came crashing down this week against Miami. The Hurricanes confused both Miller and Bauserman all game long and the offense looked anemic. They scored just six points in the game, and the quarterbacks combined to go 4-for-18 with just 35 yards and one interception.

As Doug Lesmerises from the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote, this is not going to be a wake-up call for the Buckeyes, rather it will be a sign of things to come as they move deeper into the season and play better competition.

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The OSU fans most frustrated right now are probably those who predicted a 10- or 11-win regular season for the Buckeyes based on the familiar winning elixir: the uniforms, a talent edge and the relative inability of opponents to make Ohio State pay for its imperfections.

Laundry is laundry. But the talent has been sapped to the point where any team among the best 50 or so in the country has a crack at the Buckeyes right now.

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Things will not get easier for the Buckeyes in the coming weeks as they take on Michigan State, Nebraska, Illinois and Wisconsin in consecutive weeks after a game against Colorado this Saturday.

They are going to come out of that stretch of games with a 3-5 overall record, 0-4 in the Big Ten. They have two winnable games against Indiana and Purdue after that brutal four-game stretch, which should push their overall record to 5-5.

But their last two games—at home against Penn State and at Michigan—will test their mettle, and, if they lose both of those games, which is a distinct possibility, they would finish the season 2-6 in the Big Ten.

Given the way Ohio State's quarterback situation looks right now, and the number of big plays that their usually-stout defense gave up to an average Miami offense, a five-win season is about as good as they can expect.

Times are tough in Columbus right now, and things are going to get worse before they start getting better.