With spring football in the books, Eleven Warriors will look back over the next week at what we learned from each position group heading into the offseason.
The winner of the most widely-discussed quarterback battle in recent college football history won’t be named by Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer until, at the earliest, the middle of fall camp.
That doesn’t mean we still can’t talk about it, though. Heck, Meyer has been answering questions about it since the day after the Buckeyes defeated Oregon to win the 2014 national championship.
J.T. Barrett, Cardale Jones and Braxton Miller — three highly-accomplished signal callers who all bring something slightly different to the table. Meyer has said recently everything about his dilemma is good except two are going to have to sit and only one can play.
“It’s not like wide receiver where you can play three of them,” he said.
Everybody knew this spring wouldn’t determine who Ohio State’s starting quarterback would be come fall. Barrett is still rehabbing his broken ankle he suffered in the Buckeyes’ regular-season finale against Michigan and Miller is still working to get his shoulder — he tore his labrum 12 days before Ohio State opened the 2014 season — back to normal.
“This can’t be, ‘Well, I’m going with him because it’s my gut feeling.’ Those gut feelings — it’s got to be statistical analysis and data, backed up on who is going to play quarterback.”– Urban Meyer
That meant Jones would get all of the first-team reps and Stephen Collier — Ohio State’s fourth scholarship quarterback — would run with the second team in the spring. Essentially, it was a time for Jones to cement himself as the frontrunner heading into fall camp.
In Saturday’s spring game Jones was up-and-down. He completed just 19 of his 42 passes for 304 yards for two touchdowns and two interceptions. He showed off his best quality, though — his cannon for a right arm — with touchdown tosses of 58 and 37 yards, respectively, and a 74-yard heave during a quarterback skills competition at halftime with Barrett and 2006 Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith.
“That wasn’t a Cardale day,” Meyer said following the game. “He played behind a makeshift offensive line and I can give you a bunch of excuses, but he’s got to be much sharper than that.
“For the spring, I’d give him a very good spring, though.”
In practices open to the media, nothing suggested that be untrue. Jones looked sharp, efficient and appeared to be much more of a vocal leader than he had in the past. Barrett was much further along in his rehab than almost anyone thought, but still couldn't go through drills at full speed. Miller was even more limited being that he still can't throw a football, though he could be seen at times off to the side lobbing the ball 20 or 30 yards.
It seems all three made at least some type of progress this spring.
But now that spring ball is over, the most talked about quarterback derby of the season can heat up even more. Because when Ohio State opens fall camp in August, all three should be fully healthy.
Truth be told, nobody really knows what Meyer is thinking. He doesn’t have to make his decision for quite some time and there really isn’t a bad choice to be made.
This spring certainly didn’t make things any easier on him, though.
“I’ll come up with some kind of system throughout training camp that we’re going to chart everything that everyone does,” Meyer said. “This can’t be, ‘Well, I’m going with him because it’s my gut feeling.’ Those gut feelings — it’s got to be statistical analysis and data, backed up on who is going to play quarterback.”
