Ohio State football’s next starting quarterback success story: 10 Crucial Buckeyes

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Kyle McCord and Devin Brown face no ambiguity about the expectations one of them will inherit as Ohio State football’s next starting quarterback.

On average, the three new Buckeye starting quarterbacks since Ryan Day arrived in 2017 have completed 70% of their passes and thrown for 4,179 yards and 45 touchdowns. Not only did they continue the tradition of winning the Big Ten’s quarterback and offensive player of the year award, all three were Heisman Trophy finalists.

On one hand, quite a daunting comparison. On the other, an impressive track record of complementary talent and coaching that helped those predecessors quickly reach their potential.

Whoever Day anoints as the successor to Dwayne Haskins, Justin Fields and C.J. Stroud becomes the most important individual to determining Ohio State’s fate in 2023.

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Both McCord and Brown can sling it. If you don’t believe the eyes of the reporters who saw extensive practice reps this spring, that’s how the other Buckeye players describe their quarterbacks, too. McCord and Brown both have the sort of deep-ball accuracy that can make use of these myriad receiving weapons downfield while also attacking horizontally to the wide side of the field. As Stroud and Fields showed over the past four seasons, both skills are crucial in this offense.

Perhaps most importantly, while either McCord or Brown will be the new starting quarterback, neither is new to the offense. McCord in particular has spent three years learning Day’s system and building a rapport with these receivers. This torch is being passed according to plan.

Growing pains are inevitable. As C.J. Stroud can attest, if they come early — or against the wrong opponent — things will get noisy. All of the notoriety and glory that can follow the next starter comes with lofty, rigid expectations. Fair or not, McCord or Brown will not be judged only against themselves. They will be judged against the standard set by Haskins, Fields and Stroud. Personality and mentality will be critical for the next in line.

The three-game warm-up of Indiana, Youngstown State and Western Kentucky allows the starter to grow comfortable and confident. By the Sept. 23 trip to Notre Dame, the offense has found a familiar rhythm. The offensive line, shaky during the spring, stabilizes. That helps the run game, with newly healthy TreVeyon Henderson and Miyan Williams, provide the needed counter-punch to the passing attack.

Day’s last three first-year starters all went to New York as Heisman Trophy finalists. Only one of them went to the playoff, though, and Justin Fields lost that 2019 semifinal to Clemson. So the best case scenario is pulling a 2018 Trevor Lawrence and maximizing the veteran talent en route to a national championship. Likelihood: 27%.

Too truly qualify as “worst case,” you have to imagine something more problematic than a couple of losses against a tough schedule. What if Day does not find the “extraordinary trait” he seeks? His other quarterback projects achieved almost immediate success as starters. Sometimes good quarterbacks stumble early, and this schedule may not leave much room for error.

The roster has questions elsewhere. Maybe the offensive line does not protect enough to allow the new quarterback to make full use of his weapons. That could have both physical and mental repercussions. But truly, to wind up with the first season of three or more losses in the last dozen years, the quarterback decisions probably has to be flat wrong. Likelihood: 4%

Likelihood of in between: 69%

As great as Justin Fields was in 2019 – and with a receiver corps that had not yet reached peak Zone 6 status – he also had a couple of huge advantages. The OSU defense was the best in the country, and J.K. Dobbins running behind a collection of NFL offensive linemen did a lot of heavy lifting.

Neither the run game nor the defense are on 2019 trajectories, but both should be better. That could mean McCord/Brown start the season in better position than Stroud two years ago. As the starting quarterback grows into the best version of himself, he can focus on being a consistent distributor and facilitator for the offense, rather than its savior.

Only once since 2018 has a non-OSU Big Ten quarterback finished with a pass efficiency rating over 160. That was Minnesota’s Tanner Morgan in 2020, when he had both Tyler Johnson and Rashod Bateman in his receiver corps and nearly caught Fields (181.43-178.70). Both McCord and Brown are better prospects than Morgan. But that production — including a league-best 10.2 yards per attempt — is a reasonable expectation for OSU’s starting quarterback.

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