C.J. Stroud gets NFL preview at Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson's Pro Day
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Wednesday was not Garrett Wilson’s first Pro Day.
That came last year, serving as an accessory for former Ohio State quarterback and current Chicago Bear Justin Fields, doing everything he wanted to do, being there for him, show off what he wanted to show off. With it, once Wednesday came, Wilson was able to embrace Fields’ mindset preparing for his own chance in the spotlight.
But Wilson and Chris Olave needed their own accessory. It just so happened to be possibly the quarterback who could be first in line to be taken in the 2023 NFL Draft.
It wasn’t C.J. Stroud’s show, though. He served at the pleasure of Olave and Wilson, walking up to each of them, adhering to the routes and suggestions each one had in front of a plethora of NFL coaches and scouts.
That’s all the Buckeyes redshirt sophomore quarterback wanted out of Wednesday afternoon, knowing what came with it.
“I was excited. I damn near didn’t sleep last night,” Stroud said. “I was just excited to come out here and have the opportunity.”
There wasn’t a quarterback Wilson or Olave would rather have.
To Wilson, Stroud throws a ball that is not hard to catch, understanding touch and pace on his throws. The way he approaches practice and walk-throughs, the wide receiver said, is so detailed, knowing that with Stroud on the field, him and Olave would come out looking crisp and clean.
“He brings something to the table that not a lot of people bring to the table,” Wilson said.
To Olave, Stroud’s a pocket passer in the best sense, showing the ability to make any throw across the field, whether it’s a short crossing route to a deep out route.
“I think having C.J. back there makes it easier on the receivers, and I think he showed that today,” Olave said.
Standing in the position of a middle linebacker facing Stroud and his two first-round receivers during their showcase, Ohio State head coach Ryan Day didn’t see anything he didn’t already know.
He watched his redshirt sophomore talk with Wilson, going through an intricate four-step route to close his day, lining up and running it to perfection off a play-action look. It’s a route he replicated with Olave on the other side, seemingly replicating Fields’ Pro Day action from a season ago.
This is the path Day knows Stroud is on, seeing him with the same opportunity Wilson and Olave had with Fields a season ago: with the confidence of coming into his own Pro Day knowing he’s done it before.
It’s something the Ohio State head coach is already preparing his quarterback for.
“Every day we’re meeting, we’re going through that. We had meetings today, we have meetings tomorrow, we have practice tomorrow. It’s a consistent process,” Day said. “It doesn’t all happen at once. It’s just constant, gentle pressure over time. And in the end, this is what you see.”
And while the expectations remain high, Day said the mindset remains pretty much the same from when he entered last season without ever throwing a collegiate pass and nobody knew who he was.
“You can’t listen to the people who say, ‘Oh, you have never done it before,’ people that are doubting you after the first couple of games when they said he couldn’t play, they were questioning the shoulder,” Dau said. “They are the same ones saying he’s going to be the first quarterback in the draft next year.
“Don’t worry about that. Just worry about getting better.”
Wednesday afternoon, Stroud was focused on making Wilson and Olave look good.
To the redshirt sophomore quarterback, it was kind of full circle, starting his Ohio State career from that very spot on his official visit throwing in 2019 to now, throwing in front of countless NFL coaches, scouts and executives, sensing his future, seeing them write notes on their pads and wondering what they were saying about him.
But this Pro Day wasn’t about Stroud. It wasn’t about Stroud proving that he could change the trajectory of one of the franchises in attendance — something Olave already knows his quarterback can do.
It’s something the quarterback will learn and grow from. But he knows it’s not his turn, even though the reality is his turn is coming.
“It’s definitely something I’m going to learn from, something I think I’ll be more comfortable with next year when I do it for my own,” Stroud said. “But today, I just wanted to make them look good.
“I just wanted to show them that they could do that.”
Walking away, when someone told Stroud that he basically confirmed that 2022 would be his final season in an Ohio State uniform, that he would be holding his own Pro Day at this time next year, all the redshirt sophomore could do was laugh.
“It’s all up to that man upstairs,” he said.