Ohio State Football: Braxton Miller Won't Duplicate Terrelle Pryor's Success

The parallels between Braxton Miller and Terrelle Pryor are too poetically perfect to ignore. Just don't expect Miller to bring a Big Ten title back to Ohio State like Pryor did, at least not right away.

Ohio State coach Luke Fickell announced on Thursday that Miller, a true freshman, will take over as the Buckeyes' starting quarterback when Pac-12 newbie Colorado comes to Columbus on Saturday. Redshirt senior Joe Bauserman is still expected to play against the Buffaloes but will see his opportunities diminished considerably. Bauserman was nothing short of miserable under center in Ohio State's 24-6 loss at Miami, throwing for 13 yards on 2-of-14 passing.

Miller will assume the position in just his fourth collegiate game, just as Pryor did in 2008. That year, a disheartening 35-3 defeat at USC convinced then-coach Jim Tressel to sit starter Todd Boeckman, a sixth-year senior, in favor of Pryor, who came in as the blue-chip recruit in college football. Pryor was spectacular in his debut as a starter, with 139 yards and four touchdowns through the air and another 66 yards on the ground in a 28-10 victory over Troy.

Miller may find slightly more resistance against the Buffaloes than did Pryor against the Trojans from upstate New York, but certainly not enough to deter him from resurrecting the ghosts of Ohio State's all-too-recent past. The kid from Huber Heights, Ohio, isn't the tall, lanky, small-forward-type that Pryor was in his early days. Miller, though, may yet be faster and more effective as a dual-threat quarterback than was his predecessor. He, like Pryor, will be asked to load the Buckeyes' hopes onto his still-soft shoulders and carry the team to a Big Ten title.

Unfortunately for Miller and Ohio State, the buck(eye) will stop before they reach that last and most important goal. It's not 2008 anymore. The Buckeyes, though still loaded with talent, don't quite intimidate opponents like they used to, not with the storm cloud of the NCAA hovering over their heads.

Not with Toledo marching into the Horseshoe and giving the Buckeyes the 27-22 scare of a lifetime.

Ohio State's competition will also be much stiffer this time around than it was three years ago. Michigan may not be back up to speed just yet under Brady Hoke, but they won't go 3-9 like they did under Rich Rodriguez that year. Michigan State, with quarterback Kirk Cousins, is no slouch either, even after a disappointing loss to Notre Dame in Week 3. Wisconsin is looking like the team to beat in the Big Ten thanks to the emergence of senior transfer Russell Wilson under center. Speaking of newcomers, Nebraska has all the pieces in place to challenge for a conference title in year one of its Big Ten membership.

As for the Buckeyes themselves, their roster is still loaded with top talent that Tressel hoarded over the years. But the NCAA storm cloud that's hung over Columbus for the last 10 months has dampened OSU's swagger and watered down their prospects for conference supremacy in the process.

Don't get me wrong, Miller will be an excellent player and will keep the Buckeyes competitive in the meantime. They'll win games and contend in the "leaders" division, but they won't pull out a berth in the Big Ten title game over Wisconsin.

Not with the month of October that the Buckeyes have in store, bookended by home games against Michigan State and Wisconsin and filled in mid-month by dates at Nebraska and at Illinois.

The Buckeyes' failure to win a seventh consecutive Big Ten title will not necessarily be Miller's to share. The kid's got all the talent in the world to be Terrelle Pryor, and then some. But given the circumstances into which Miller will set foot, with the dust still settling from the aftermath of Tressel and Pryor's departures, he'll need more than just symmetry on paper to duplicate Pryor's accomplishments right out of the gate.

He'll need stability and tranquility, two things of which the Buckeyes are in short supply these days.

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