Joe Burrow is, as of this writing, a nonentity in Ohio State sports. A redshirt freshman, he was an afterthought as the Cardale/Barrett quarterback controversy raged on last season, and now that J.T. Barrett is etched in stone as the starter at quarterback for the 2016 season, Burrow can safely sit at the end of the bench and stare wistfully into space for three hours every Saturday this fall. Right?
Actually, probably not! In fact, Burrow better start warming up right freaking now in anticipation of having to jump in at a moment's notice should J.T. Barrett get hurt or otherwise not be available to play. And of course I know that on a certain level, you as an Ohio State fan already get this. We've seen a third string quarterback lead an overachieving group of misfits to a natty and then get his ass drafted in the fourth round.
But maybe you think that was some kind of glorious anomaly, a shiny Diglett in a swarm of Zubats, a hunk of chocolate in a bag of healthy trail mix. While I'm certainly hoping that that's the case so that Ohio State can go on to have a lot of success without an injury or controversy, statistically we're both spitting into the wind a little bit on this one.
The following is a breakdown of who threw what percentage of the total passes in a given year for the Ohio State Buckeyes. I feel that this stat is somewhat more meaningful than a breakdown of snaps overall, in that a series of handoffs in the last three minutes of a blowout probably indicate less importance than passes that presumably were thrown when the game was still in (semi) doubt.
2015
- 324 total passes
- Cardale Jones: 54% of passes thrown
- J.T. Barrett: 45% of passes thrown
2014
- 409 total passes
- J.T. Barrett: 76% of passes thrown
- Cardale Jones: 22% of passes thrown
2013
- 366 total passes
- Braxton Miller: 69% of passes thrown
- Kenny Guiton: 29% of passes thrown
2012
- 277 total passes
- Braxton Miller: 91% of passes thrown
- Kenny Guiton: 8% of passes thrown
2011
- 243 total passes
- Braxton Miller: 64% of passes thrown
- Joe Bauserman: 35% of passes thrown
Taken as a whole, backup Ohio State QBs have averaged almost 28% of the passes in each of the last five seasons. 2012 is the only outlier here, as injuries and controversy have necessitated major contributions from those second stringers as of late.
This is something new in Ohio State football. If you look at the last five years of Jim Tressel's tenure, backup quarterbacks only averaged about 12% of the total passes thrown, which is only even that high because of the quarterback controversy of the 2008 season that saw Terrelle Pryor and Todd Boeckman battle for the starting position early on in the year.
We can debate endlessly about the reasons for this statistical difference. The hottest of my takes is that Meyer's brand of offense puts a quarterback at much, much greater risk than BollmanBall ever did, but ultimately it really it doesn't matter why so much as it matters that the reality of the situation is that OSU backups need to stay completely woke at all times.
A few weeks ago, Burrow had some heavy playing time in the Ohio State Spring Game, putting up decent but unspectacular stats in a relatively uneven performance.
"I thought I took a little step forward, but I still have a long way to go and I’m going to work really hard this summer to get where I need to be to be the backup at Ohio State," Burrow said.
A long way to go, maybe, but Stephen Collier's injury may have cemented Burrow's status as a backup. It also serves as a reminder that things can change on a dime in the Urban Meyer era, and have with regularity. No one wants to see anything less than J.T. Barrett taking every conceivable meaningful snap in the 2016 season, but if past seasons are any indication, we should probably start brushing up on just who Mr. Joe Burrow is. Just in case.
