Spring practices are well underway, but Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer is no closer to naming a starting quarterback for 2015.
He’s got an embarrassment of riches to choose from. Braxton Miller is the three-year starter who entered 2014 as the number one guy before a shoulder injury. JT Barrett replaced him ably throughout the regular season, leading the Buckeyes to a playoff berth. And then Cardale Jones carried OSU to a national championship when Barrett went down with a right leg injury.
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Meyer has already said that the thought of picking one guy over the other two is “starting to eat away at me,” and the choice isn’t going to get any easier as the summer draws closer.
Everything is positive: Talent, quality of people, value to the program, investment in the program, check, check, check, check,” Urban Meyer said, via the school’s website. “Negative? Two people are going to have to watch. It’s not like receiver where you can put three of them out there.”
Compounding matters is that each quarterback brings a different set of skills to the position, so they’re not easy to compara 1:1:1. Barrett is an efficient system QB who takes care of the ball. Jones is a big-bodied pocket passer (with occasional bursts of mobility), and Miller is the swiss-army knife athlete who rushed for 1,000+ yards in both of his previous two full seasons.
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Moreover, Barrett and Miller are severely limited in practice reps as they rehab their injuries -- giving Jones the vast majority of activity and further clouding Meyer’s decision-making.
As a graduate student with a year of eligibility, Miller still has the opportunity to transfer elsewhere and play immediately, but there’s little indication (so far) he plans on doing so. Barrett has three years left of eligibility. Jones, however, will be bound for the draft in 2016. That, coupled with his performance in last season’s playoffs, probably makes him the favorite to earn the starting gig to begin 2015.
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