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Urban Meyer announced the Ohio State Buckeyes coaching staff have decided to make a change at quarterback, giving J.T. Barrett the starting nod over Cardale Jones, during his B1G teleconference on Tuesday.
With the switch, it does feel like Meyer put the rest of the college football world on notice that his team is finally ready to defend its title. “I have two great guys that I have a tremendous amount of respect for”.
“J.T. has earned the right to start”, Meyer said. While it seems clear that Elliott will soon pass the former quarterback, a strong game from Miller could keep him in fifth for at least one more week. “It was a very difficult decision”. As for the reason for the decision, Meyer cited Barrett’s third-down and red-zone efficiency, along with “sheer production”. It’s no surprise Barrett ended up as Ohio State’s starter again, because his true dual-threat style just was better suited to what a college program needed to maximize its offensive potential. But Barrett hasn’t thrown much this year, and Meyer wants to get the pass game settled, so I think Barrett could chuck it around quite a bit as well. The trend continued against Penn State. The other resulted in a field goal.
The Buckeyes should be able to get Jones reps at quarterback in the Rutgers game, if they so choose. He won maybe the most-talked about quarterback battle – 2013 Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year Braxton Miller also was involved – of all-time during the preseason.
This was no unexpected plot twist. Last week Jones had only 84 yards passing in the win against Penn State and over his last five games he has four interceptions and five touchdowns. Miller’s move to H-Back allowed for Jones and Barrett to have a quarterback competition for the starting job.
The Buckeyes (7-0) are 81st in the nation in converting third downs into first downs at 37.5 percent. They are 72nd in converting red-zone trips into touchdowns at 60.7 percent (17 for 28), and most of those TDs have come with Barrett on the field.
For all the grumbling that Ohio State isn’t winning by five touchdowns every week, it has trailed for 8 minutes 31 seconds out of 210 in the second half this season. He led the Buckeyes to a couple more touchdowns and finished with a solid stat line: 4 of 4 passing for 30 yards and two touchdowns, 11 carries for 102 yards and two touchdowns.
The final play began with Michigan at the Michigan State 47 with 10 seconds to play, and Harbaugh said after the game that he wished O’Neill had fallen on the football, leaving Michigan State with a Hail Mary attempt as its only option to win the game.
Corey Smith was expected to emerge as one of the team’s deep-ball receivers after a breakout spring game, but he was lost for the season when he broke his leg against Indiana.
To say that Urban Meyer is refusing to pull the plug on Jones due to being stubborn is laughable in the same sense that anyone could assume Meyer is also blind to the significantly better production when Barrett is in.
The demotion will definitely hurt his NFL draft stock, and it raises the prospect that Barrett could finish fast and position himself for a run at the NFL after this season, since he is a redshirt sophomore and eligible to leave OSU early. For seven weeks now, we’ve watched the Buckeyes toil with this two-quarterback system. Initially, Cardale Jones earned the start in the season opener against Virginia Tech. Rutgers is in a stretch of eight consecutive Saturdays with a game that started versus Michigan State.
