Columbus, Ohio In the Big Ten, Ohio State has always been the gold standard for quarterback play; however, in 2023, that was not the case.
For the first time in nearly ten years, a Buckeye finished third on the Big Ten quarterback roster rather than winning the conference quarterback award. Is this a one-year anomaly or does it indicate that the conference is finally catching up?
A new generation of quarterbacks hoping to take the top spot in 2024 is joining the Big Ten as it enters a new era. Nathan Bard and Stephen Menas examine the quarterback situations around the conference and talk about who poses the most threat to OSU’s quarterbacking position.Here you are at Buckeye Talk. This is Nathan Baird, that’s me, Stephen Means, and this is your Tuesday Buckeye Talk.
Spring break is upon Ohio State. We will thus resume our discussion about spring practice when they return for the last 13 practices of the season next week. But, dude, get the text still. 614-350-3315. Things continue to happen, we continue to have ideas, communicate things, recruit people, or just keep moving forward. Therefore, it’s still worthwhile for you to sign up for that two-week free trial. Alternatively, if you’d rather wait until Sunday to do it, that’s okay too. You’ll still have two weeks of spring football to enjoy.
and I are going to work out.
I believe it’s crucial to do it now. It’s also intriguing—I’m not sure if this is significant—to undertake this at a moment when the Big 10 appears to be changing in terms of both the number of teams and their composition. Since there are officially 18 football teams in the Big 10, it’s more akin to the Big 18. Obviously, several of the other sports are wrapping up their seasons and will add their voices to that discussion. But in terms of football, Nathan, we’re talking about an eighteen-team conference, and several of those teams will have new starting quarterbacks.
ball team. You are discussing clubs that have a real chance to make the playoffs in 2024. The only two clubs that have their starting quarterbacks back are those that I could see. Penn State has Drew Aller on staff. Perhaps Rutgers engages Gavin Wimsot in this discussion. Well, that concludes it. Yes, that’s right.
Baird, Nathan (01:43.887)
You mentioned playoff-caliber. Rutgers is not a team that is considered a playoff contender. Yes, I am aware.
Means, Stephen (01:48.662)
It’s never a male, possibly Greg. We will never ever give Rutgers any respect; she should be something going regardless of how many years pass. But to be honest with you, Drew Aller at Penn State is the only one who can. returning to start at quarterback for a team capable of making the playoffs.
in the Big Ten, and many of these men are making new beginnings here. Upon examining all 10 of the teams from the previous season, it is evident that Michigan’s JJ McCarthy squad finished top, winning a national championship. He is currently leaving for the NFL to lead a Tango while Lola is in Maryland. He made the second team, and from what I understand, he attempted to get a waiver to play collegiate football one more year. And it’s clear that Syracuse has moved to replace Ohio State’s Kyle McCord, who was 13 at the time, and left the conference. Nathan, when you look at the Big Ten, it seems, well, like it is starting to play at a higher level. I wouldn’t say it was playing catch up to what Ohio State had accomplished in terms of quarterback play. And we witnessed it last year.
The way some of these quarterbacks play is proof of it. Even though you disagree that Talia should have been on the second team, JJ McCarthy, a five-star quarterback at Penn State in his rookie season, has started the way Talia has performed. Though it seemed like some of the other teams in the Big 10 were beginning to get better at quarterbacking, perhaps you believe Kyle should have been. And now you’re adding some teams that, under Lincoln Riley at USC, have demonstrated over the years that they have good quarterback play; you’re talking about Washington prior to Caitlin DeBoer’s apparent departure from Oregon and what the Dan landing is doing. But when you look at it, it’s really open, and you can see what Ohio State could be able to do with Wil Howard, Devin Brown, Lincoln, Keenholds, Aaron Nolan, and Julian Sand in their quarterback room. When discussing the greatest quarterbacks in the Big Ten, do you think Ohio State will quickly return to the top of the list? Or did you think, after looking at this, that it might not be as closed off as it was in 2023?
Baird, Nathan (03:42.033)
There’s a lot to sort through. Though not in an angry way—I don’t have a lot of anger for that—I do believe Comic Cord was and should have been second team. It’s alright, I guess. It also served as a metaphor for what happened in the conference the previous year, wherein not even JJ McCarthy was able to perform to what had come to be known as the recent Ohio state standard, which is defined as a quarterback rating of 170, 175, or 180, or even higher, really pushing into those kinds of numbers where CJ Stroud had 10 yards for an attempt or whatever a few years prior. As if the Big 10’s quarterback play hadn’t burst into flames quite yet. And I believed that everything would be somewhat better overall. Many transfer quarterbacks who entered the Big 10 the previous season, such as Tanner Mordecai at Wisconsin and Hudson Card at Purdue, were active this season. I mistakenly believed that some of those guys would simply turn out to be better than they actually were. Some of those guys had a really lacklustre year. That, along with the fact that none of those guys were exactly blowing up the globe where they were previously, makes for an intriguing way to view the Big Ten moving ahead. We kind of got a hunch that, uh, some of these guys get to see stuff in shorter doses. I believe the Hudson Card was a prime example of this. What, then, could they accomplish with a full-time job? The other side of that argument, in my opinion, is that many of these guys are coming from conferences that don’t traditionally play defence, such as the Big Ten.
What impact will that have on your ability to play quarterback? And I believed that the defence prevailed last year. I so approached that as we went through this exercise, sort of team by team.
