If recent history tells us anything, it'll take between 16 to 24 days for Ohio State to decide on its starting quarterback.
“In an ideal world, you’d love to have somebody emerge after the first week or two (of camp),” Ryan Day said Tuesday of the two-man quarterback competition.
With Kyle McCord and Devin Brown competing for the starting quarterback job as preseason camp begins Thursday, the Buckeyes still don't know who their starting signal-caller will be with the season set to begin in 30 days. Then again, Day is certainly no stranger to that.
In February, Day said that he wanted to have the answer by the end of the spring game. Nearly four months later, the competition still hasn't been resolved. With McCord, the favorite to win the starting nod, not doing enough to win the battle and Brown missing the last week of spring practice due to a finger injury, one that forced him to miss the spring game, Day and Corey Dennis want more time to evaluate the two gunslingers.
McCord is not only a year older than Brown, but the junior has more experience as well. With 12 games under his belt, including one start in 2021 and 58 in-game passes, McCord certainly has the leg up in experience. Brown appeared in two games and didn't attempt a single in-game pass as a true freshman last season.
With the season opener at Indiana set for Sept. 2, Day is satisfied with the talent in the quarterback room, even if McCord and Brown, who are both confident in themselves, have yet to seize the starting job.
"This is the most depth we have had in a long time at the quarterback position, which will allow us to do some stuff we haven't done in the past," Day said at last week's Big Ten Media Days. "Devin and Kyle, they both had very good summers, they both have shown leadership and (strength coach) Mick (Marotti) has really put them in positions to do that. Now, it's time to put it on the field. We obviously would like someone to emerge quickly, but we will have to see when we get on the field."
While Day has said he wants to name the starting quarterback sooner than later, the head coach also didn't rule out the possibility of the Buckeyes' quarterback competition extending into the season.
"In the last seven years, we've been in this situation quite a few times at Ohio State, not knowing who would be the quarterback," Day said. "You had a new one with Dwayne (Haskins), a new one with Justin (Fields) and a new one with C.J. (Stroud), and here we are again. When you go into these situations, you would like to see someone emerge in camp... like it did with C.J., Justin and Dwayne, but if that doesn't happen, then maybe that is the case. We will have to evaluate it from there."
Either way, first-year offensive coordinator Brian Hartline is confident that whoever wins the competition will do just fine leading Ohio State's offense.
“I would just say the way they work,” Hartline said in June when asked what stood out to him from the quarterbacks this spring. “Not just the allotted time that we were given, they work outside those lines, as far as on their own and with the guys. Both guys spent a lot of time that way. The way they compete, the way they still give each other opponent pointers, the way they do everything, frankly, is very encouraging. And the competition's only going to drive both of them. So all of those reasons are why I'm very confident in the end process.”
With the 2023 version of Ohio State's starting quarterback competition continuing into the final month of the offseason, we take a look back at when the other three first-year starting quarterbacks since Day arrived in Columbus in 2017 – Dwayne Haskins, Justin Fields and C.J. Stroud – were officially named the starting quarterback.
Dwayne Haskins (2018)
Following the departure of J.T. Barrett, Haskins seemed to always be in the driver's seat for the starting quarterback job in 2018. He had played in eight games during the 2017 season, including leading the Buckeyes to a comeback win over Michigan after Barrett suffered a knee injury, and performed well enough during the spring that Joe Burrow transferred to LSU.
Even so, Day left the competition open between Haskins and Tate Martell until Aug. 27 – the week of the season opener – and said at the time that Martell would play as well. That said, Haskins would go on to start all 13 games for Ohio State that season, breaking Big Ten records in the process with 4,831 passing yards and 50 passing touchdowns.
Justin Fields (2019)
After Haskins was one-and-done leading the Buckeye offense, the next starting quarterback always seemed likely to be Fields once he transferred to Ohio State from Georgia. That was especially true once Fields received his waiver for immediate eligibility from the NCAA in February, and even more true when Martell and Matthew Baldwin both opted to transfer out of Ohio State before summer.
Going into preseason camp, it was a matter of when, not if, he would win the competition against Gunnar Hoak and Chris Chugunov. But Day still didn’t name Fields the starting quarterback until Aug. 19, 12 days before the season opener.
C.J. Stroud (2021)
Considered the favorite to follow in Haskins' and Fields' footsteps, Stroud competed with Jack Miller and McCord for the starting gig prior to the 2021 season.
In pole position to win the three-man battle all along, Stroud was named the starting quarterback on Aug. 21, 2021 after an impressive start to fall camp.
While this year's competition seems to be much closer than the previous three in the Day era, history shows Ohio State isn’t actually behind in naming a starting quarterback right now, even if Day said initially that he wanted to name a starter in the spring. He took his time in naming Haskins, Fields and Stroud the starter, and they became three of the best quarterbacks in Ohio State history.
If Day isn‘t ready to name a starter after the next few weeks and the competition bleeds into the first game week or the start of the season, that would be a different situation. But even then, Day’s history of developing elite quarterbacks is reason to believe Ohio State’s starter will have success in the end.
One reason why this year’s competition is tougher to forecast than the last three is that the Buckeyes have two highly talented quarterbacks who have both already been in the system for more than a year in McCord and Brown. And the fact that Day, Dennis and Hartline will have a tough decision to make over the next month isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“What's hard is when you don't have quarterbacks who can play. What's easy is when you have guys who can play, you just got to figure out who the best one is. And I kind of feel like that's the way it is right now,” Day said Wednesday.
