As Tristan Gebbia approached the end of his sixth year as a college football player at Oregon State, he thought he was ready to hang up his cleats. As it turned out, he wasn’t.
Gebbia still had the opportunity to apply for a medical redshirt and play one more year of college football due to a hamstring injury that sidelined him for the entire 2021 season, and postseason throwing sessions with his younger brother Dylan – who plays at Hawaii – made Gebbia realize he wanted to use that extra year of eligibility.
That prompted Gebbia to enter the transfer portal and ultimately transfer to Ohio State after the Buckeyes reached out with interest in bringing him in to provide depth in their quarterback unit. Now in his first spring with the Buckeyes, that’s a decision Gebbia’s glad he made.
“I think right when I was finishing up, I thought maybe that was maybe it. But I kept throwing with my little brother who plays at Hawaii, and there was just, there's something in you that you’re not ready to hang it up,” Gebbia said Tuesday after Ohio State’s first practice of the spring. “And I felt like I wasn't ready. And so I'm very grateful to be here, and I'm really happy that I decided to throw my hat back in the ring and get back involved with another team, because I think that there's a lot of great things going on here.”
Gebbia, who plans to pursue a career in coaching after he’s done playing, chose to become a Buckeye because he wanted to be a part of one of the top offenses in the country and learn from Ryan Day and Corey Dennis.
“Obviously, this is a place where competition is big, right? You're competing with yourself every day to be the best version of yourself,” Gebbia said. “This has some of the best coaches in the country, obviously, like they do a really good job here. Everything is challenging, and you have to strain to be the best version of yourself, and I was really interested in going somewhere where I was gonna be challenged to improve. And I think that that's something that's offered here.”
Ohio State isn’t expecting Gebbia to be its new starting quarterback. Through the first two days of spring practice, Gebbia has lined up as the third-string quarterback behind Kyle McCord and Devin Brown, who are competing this spring to succeed C.J. Stroud as the new leader of Ohio State’s offense.
After serving mostly as a backup at Oregon State, where he started five games in five years after transferring from Nebraska, Gebbia understands the role he’s been brought in to play at Ohio State. He still needs to be ready to play in case a situation arises where the Buckeyes need him to step in, though, and he says that’s what he’s focusing on rather than where he sits on the depth chart.
“The way that I see it is personally, it's my responsibility to be the best version of myself every day and to help with whatever is needed of me. So whether that be helping guys out, playing, whatever is being asked of me, I need to do that to the best of my ability,” Gebbia said. “And in order to do that, I have to be able to be the best version of myself every day and just improve every day. That's how I see it.
“If I'm able to do that, I think that I can impress coaches and my teammates and show that I can play at a high level. That's what's important to me.”
Gebbia’s five starts at the collegiate level are four more than any other quarterback on Ohio State’s roster has (McCord made one in 2021), so he believes he can provide valuable mentorship to the other quarterbacks on the roster. He said that was something that helped him when he was a young quarterback at Oregon State, particularly when he was thrust into duty for his first start in the Beavers’ final game of 2019.
“I think that what I'll be able to do is I'll be able to step back and look at the bigger picture and say, ‘Hey, you know, these are the things that we need to do on a weekly basis to give ourselves the best chance to win,’” Gebbia said. “Routine, and having the discipline to go and watch film on this and that, and just being able to be another voice in the room that's almost like a coach.
“And also like, when you're coming off the field, in my experience, it's good to have somebody to talk to that has played. My first start against Oregon in 2019, Jake Luton was there. He got hurt and I started that game. And having somebody that was experienced like Jake who played a lot of football and is now in the NFL, being able to come off the field and talk to somebody who's played in those games and knows how it is to be out there under the lights and being the man in the arena and how difficult some of those situations are, and I think that that's what I bring to the room.”
“The way that I see it is personally, it's my responsibility to be the best version of myself every day, and to help with whatever is needed of me.”– Tristan Gebbia on his role at Ohio State
McCord told Eleven Warriors in February that Gebbia has given the quarterbacks “almost another coach in the room,” and Brown says Gebbia has “been great” to the other quarterbacks. Brown actually played a part in Gebbia becoming a Buckeye, as they have known each other since Brown – five years younger than Gebbia – attended a camp as a middle school quarterback where Gebbia was a counselor.
“We train with the same quarterback coach out in Arizona, Rudy Carpenter. So I've kind of had that relationship for a while,” Brown said of Gebbia. “And he's an older guy. He's got a lot of game experience. He's done a lot of things in college. I mean, this will be his seventh year I believe, he's 24 years old. He’s been to three different schools now. So he is able to kind of verbalize things to me and give me a lot of different opinions on things and kind of mentor me. It's been really good.”
Gebbia sees similarities between OSU & OSU
When Gebbia compares his new team to his old team, he believes there are “a lot of things that are very similar” between Ohio State and Oregon State. That starts with the culture of the two programs.
“If you took any guys from Oregon State and you planted them in this locker room, I think that they would get along really well. Because they're similar character people,” Gebbia said. “I think that's what (Oregon State coach Jonathan) Smith and Coach Day do a good job of is finding guys that have good character and bringing them into the locker room. And I think that's really important for team chemistry. So yeah, I think that there's a lot of things that are very similar. And I think that there's a couple things that are a little different.”
The biggest difference Gebbia has seen so far between the two OSUs is the pace at which the Buckeyes and Beavers operate their respective offenses. While Oregon State runs a traditional pro-style offense in which they typically huddle between plays, Ohio State runs a higher-tempo spread offense, which he says means the Buckeyes run “a lot more plays” in practice.
Of course, there’s also a difference in expectations between Ohio State and Oregon State, as the Buckeyes are expected to compete for national championships every season while Oregon State hasn’t won a conference championship since 2000. Gebbia says that hasn’t been a big adjustment for him, however, because he’s always approached every game as if he was competing at the highest level.
“As far as I was always concerned, it’s I'm competing for a national championship every day,” Gebbia said. “So as easy as is to say that there are big expectations here, because there are, obviously – this is Ohio State and they have been competing for national championships for a long time, and Oregon State's trying to get into that kind of category – I want to hold myself to a high standard, and I've wanted to do that for my whole career.”
Tristan Gebbia completed 128 of 200 passing attempts for 1,250 yards and five touchdowns with four interceptions in 12 game appearances at Oregon State. (Photo: Soobum Im – USA TODAY Sports)
When Gebbia looks to begin his coaching career a year from now, he believes his cumulative experiences between Ohio State and Oregon State will have prepared him well for the next step. For now, though, he’s focused on making the most of his final season as a player and doing everything he can to make the Buckeyes better.
“I think that I've been very fortunate to play under some really great coaches. Jonathan Smith at Oregon State is a fantastic coach. Ryan Day is obviously a really great coach,” Gebbia said. “And they have different kind of philosophies in some ways. And in some ways, they're pretty similar. And so being able to see behind the curtain and look at those things and say, ‘Okay, what do I like, what do I not?’ and then being able to go and articulate those things down the road when I'm up for coaching opportunities. But what I'm really blessed right now is that I have an opportunity to go and have another chance to play. So I'm super fired up about that.”
