With just three days to go until Ohio State’s spring game, Urban Meyer says it still remains possible that Dwayne Haskins, Joe Burrow and Tate Martell could end up in any order on the Buckeyes’ quarterback depth chart.
In his appearance on Wednesday afternoon’s Big Ten spring football teleconference, which came after the Buckeyes held their 13th practice of the spring on Wednesday morning, Meyer said the three quarterbacks remain neck-and-neck in their competition for the starting job.
"All three are close," Meyer said Wednesday. "There are times that you wish you’d have one guy separate, but then, it’s certainly not because of poor performance, it’s because of all three want the job. So, some decisions are going to have to be made. But right now, I can’t name a one. I can’t even name a three."
Collectively, the three quarterbacks combined to have their best practice of the spring yet on Wednesday, Meyer said, which has the Buckeyes’ coach feeling confident about the candidates he has at the position.
"This is three good ones," Meyer said.
That’s not to say that Meyer would feel confident putting any one of the three quarterbacks out on the field as his starting quarterback right now. He says that all three must continue to develop over the course of the summer in order to be ready to start this fall. In due time, though, he is confident that any of the three could be a successful starting quarterback for the Buckeyes this year.
"Obviously it’s still, we don’t play for another few months, and they got to go through the summer training and all that, and training camp, but with the proper development, yes," Meyer said.
“Right now, I can’t name a one. I can’t even name a three.”– Urban Meyer on the quarterback competition
That’s also not to say that the coaches haven’t discussed who their starting quarterback might be. Asked whether it would be difficult to name a starting quarterback after the spring, Meyer acknowledged Wednesday that there are conversations being had about the quarterback competition that he would not share with the public. But while he still wants to see more from all three quarterbacks, he feels good knowing that all three have made a case for why they should win the job this spring.
"I don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves, and a lot of the things I won’t share with everyone else, what’s going on in-house, but I’ve been in worse situations where you don’t have one," Meyer said. "So we’ve just got to do right by the team and do right by the players."
Burrow, Martell and Haskins now have two remaining opportunities to impress their coaches on the field before the spring concludes. The Buckeyes will practice one more time on Friday morning before Saturday’s spring game, which is scheduled for a 1:45 p.m. kickoff at Ohio Stadium.
