J.T. Barrett took the snap then stood tall in the pocket until he no longer could.
Nebraska’s pass rush came around the edge and applied some pressure on Ohio State’s starting quarterback. It looked as if Barrett had no place to go, that he’d be sacked on this third-down play and the Buckeyes would be forced to settle for a field goal.
Then, a J.T. Barrett thing happened.
The redshirt junior signal caller danced around a bit, retreated and then rolled to his left left. Barrett’s eyes were glued to the end zone from the moment he broke outside the pocket, then he reared back and fired a pass across his body. Terry McLaurin caught it for an Ohio State touchdown.
It went from a potential bad play — taking a sack on third-and-goal — to a great play in a matter of seconds. That’s just the way Barrett likes it.
“He’s really good,” Buckeyes head coach Urban Meyer says. “He’s strong is what he is. He’s very strong and twitched up and he’s amazing at some of that. He gets out of those things.”
Things. Plural.
That’s because Barrett’s touchdown pass to McLaurin on Saturday night was just the latest example of what’s suddenly becoming a long list of plays that look like they’re going nowhere only to wind up turning into something.
It’s almost like a sixth sense Barrett has. He knows when a play is about to break down and then, at the last second, he escapes the pressure and makes a play outside the pocket.
“I just feel like I try to do my best and understand that the O-lineman have a really tough job blocking the guys up front,” Barrett said. “I try to tell them just give me two, two-and-a-half seconds and I’m going to get it out of my hands as quick as possible or I’m going to run or scramble, things like that.”
“I just try to do my best to make sure we don’t have those negative plays,” he continued. “It’s more of anything preparation in practice with coach Beck doing bags and feeling pressure. We do that a lot in practice.”
But while Barrett said it’s something he works on in practice, Meyer said he saw it in Barrett before he arrived in Columbus. His ability to get out of trouble was a natural ability he always possessed.
“He did that in high school,” Meyer said. “And yeah, if you remember back his redshirt freshman year he was really good at it.”
He still is, too. Perhaps even better, actually.
Barrett’s ability to escape pressure and extend a play might be difficult to explain. It’s a combination of both instinct and skill. But it’s certainly not hard to notice each and every time he drops back to pass and the pocket collapses.
Because as crazy as it sounds, when that happens and things break down, that’s usually good news for Ohio State.
