COLUMBUS, Ohio – 2021 will see the Buckeyes in an extremely unfamiliar situation in terms of the quarterback position. Gone is Justin Fields and two years of starting experience and the Buckeyes will have a roster of quarterbacks who are all long on talent but short on experience, especially when it comes to throwing a pass.

None of the potential starters for the Buckeyes will have attempted a collegiate pass going into the upcoming season. Both Jack Miller and CJ Stroud have seen time leading the Buckeyes, but neither have attempted a pass. Same goes with incoming freshman quarterback Kyle McCord.

A shortened season, not putting teams away quickly enough, the need just to keep Fields on the field to play for ‘now’ rather than ‘tomorrow’ all factored into the circumstances that only allowed the back-ups to play in the waning moments of games, generally when the offense consisted of handing the ball off or a QB keeper.

It got us to thinking about how often does that happen? How many times over the last 50 years have the Buckeyes entered a season with a quarterback who has not attempted a pass as their game one starter?

It has happened a grand total of just three times, where the starter for the first game of the season has never attempted a pass previously in a college football game.

2021 will be the fourth time, regardless of who is named the starter.

And this does not factor in what happens later in the season, who plays the most snaps over the course of the year, this is only about game one, snap one for a season.

The Buckeyes would go on to win the national championship one of these years, would make bowl games in two of these three seasons and would finish a combined record of 27-9-1. So, the point is, this is no indicator of what team success will be, but an interesting study, nonetheless.

The Buckeyes have had more instances where it has had a three-year starter (six) than this situation.

It has not happened since the 2014 season when a redshirt J.T. Barrett was pressed into duty when Braxton Miller sustained a shoulder injury less than a month before the start of the upcoming season. Miller was the opening game starter for the previous two years and there was no doubt that he would open the 2014 season until fate intervened.

Miller would put up the best debut numbers of the previous four quarterbacks who entered their first game without a previous pass thrown. Barrett would lead Ohio State to a 34-17 win over Navy with a 12-15 passing day for 226 yards with two scores and an interception as the Buckeyes didn’t ask too much of their young quarterback.

As we all remember, the Buckeyes would go on to lose game two of the season, a home game against Virginia Tech, a game where Barrett would go only 9-29 and throw three picks in an inexplicable 35-21 loss to the Hokies.

After that? Ohio State would go on to win the first College Football Playoff Championship, but fate would intervene again and Barrett would not make it out of the Michigan game and would end up next to Miller on the bench for the final three games as Cardale Jones would pick up the ball and cross the goal line in games against Wisconsin, Alabama and Oregon.

2004 was one of those instances where we almost saw this happen again as Justin Zwick would step in to replace Craig Krenzel, the former four-star quarterback would enter the year with only eight career pass attempts, completing four of them in 2003. As we all remember, both Zwick and Troy Smith were part of the same recruiting class and people may not have been clearly aware of what Smith was set to become, winning the Heisman in 2006 and leading the Buckeyes to the BCS Championship Game in 2006, coming up short to an Urban Meyer-led Buzzsaw in the Fiesta Bowl.

In 1999, we came close to this as well with Austin Moherman, he had even fewer attempts than Zwick did, just one pass attempt in 1998, an incompletion. The Buckeyes would end up dropping the ’99 season opener to UCLA in a game where Moherman would go 10-22 throwing the ball for 107 yards with a touchdown and an interception. Steve Bellisari would take over as starter by game three of the season.

You have to go all the way back to 1978 for the next occurrence, and this is the only time that a first-year player stepped into the starting role with Art Schlichter. The Bloomingburg (Ohio) legend came to Ohio State with an impressive pedigree but the future four-year starter was thrown to the wolves in his first game, the season opener of the 1978 season.

Penn State was not a member of the Big Ten at this time, but the No. 6 ranked Ohio State Buckeyes would host the No. 5 ranked Nittany Lions and it was a day to forget as the Buckeyes were shutout, 19-0.

Schlichter would go 12-26 for just 182 yards with zero touchdowns against five interceptions. Year one would not be kind to Schlichter as he would only throw four touchdowns over the course of the season against 21 interceptions. This would be the only game of the four that we are looking at where the Buckeyes did not secure the win.

50 years prior to this season is the third and final time that a quarterback with no collegiate pass attempts started a game for the Buckeyes and this one might be the most curious of them all. Don Lamka was a back-up defensive back for previous seasons under Woody Hayes but would be thrust into the quarterback role to start the 1971 season.

Lamka was a tremendous high school quarterback but did not have the opportunity to play offense until this season. Lamka would fumble his first snap of the game but the Buckeyes would recover it. After that, the passing numbers were not all that much, just 5-7 for 60 yards with no scores or picks, but Lamka was a tremendous runner as he rushed for four touchdowns and 100 yards on 15 carries in Ohio State’s 52-21 win over the Iowa Hawkeyes.

Over the course of that season, Lamka would only throw for two touchdowns and five picks but will be remembered as the first Ohio State quarterback to ever account for 300 yards of offense in a game against Colorado. How things have changed these days in modern football where a sub-300 yard passing game is criticized.