C.J. Stroud came into the 2021 season having never thrown a pass at the collegiate level. At the end of his first season as Ohio State's starting quarterback, the redshirt freshman is making history.

Stroud is the first player in Big Ten history to earn the Graham-George Offensive Player of the Year award, the Griese-Brees Quarterback of the Year award and the Thompson-Randel El Freshman of the Year award.

Stroud finished with a conference-high 3,862 passing yards in 11 games, throwing 38 touchdowns — 14 more than any other quarterback in the Big Ten — with five interceptions. The redshirt freshman was also one of two Big Ten quarterbacks, along with Purdue's Aidan O'Connell, to complete more than 70% of his passes.

Olave recorded a Big Ten-high 13 touchdowns in 12 games, recording 936 receiving yards on 65 receptions for an average of 78 yards per game.

Since the award's inception in 1990, Stroud is the 11th player in school history to win the George-Graham Offensive Player of the Year award from the Big Ten, and is the fourth-straight Buckeye to win after Dwayne Haskins won in 2018 and Justin Fields took home the prize in 2019 and 2020.

Since the award started in 2011, Ohio State has now won nine of 11 Griese-Brees Quarterback of the Year awards, including two by Braxton Miller (2012, 2013), three by J.T. Barrett (2014, 2016, 2017), one by Haskins (2018) and two by Fields (2019, 2020) before Stroud won the award in 2021.

An Ohio State freshman has won the Thompson-Randle El Freshman of the Year award nine times since the award's start in 1986, but no Buckeye has won the award since running back Mike Weber in 2016 — the last time a player from the Big Ten East won such award.

Stroud was also named first-team All-Big Ten by both the coaches and the media.

Stroud finished the season with seven Big Ten Freshman of the Week awards, tying Barrett's Ohio State record from the 2014 season, along with one Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week award Nov. 22 after his performance against Michigan State.