We survived another week of Ohio State football, my friends.
It's Monday morning, so here are the things I'm thinking about this morning as Ohio State begins to prepare for Purdue.
Let’s talk about C.J. Stroud running the football.
I’m not sure that the argument and discussion about C.J. Stroud running the football is really about C.J. Stroud running the football.
When asked about it Saturday afternoon after the Buckeyes’ 26-17 win on the road against Nebraska, he opened with the quote that everyone has heard up to this point: “If my job was to run the ball, I would be a running back or something. I throw the ball for a living.”
This sparked an outrage, one calling for his job, questioning his leadership ability, calling him soft, weak, unable to take a hit.
But after saying this, Stroud’s answer took a bit of a turn.
Stroud admitted to mistakes. He admitted to the six throws into tight windows that turned into four pass breakups and two interceptions by the Nebraska defense.
It then shifted its focus to winning in general, Ohio State’s path to winning the Big Ten, how the Buckeyes found a way to fight and persevere against a team that’s been allowing opponents to fight and persevere all season long.
“Of course I wanted to play well,” Stroud said. “We wanted to play well more as an offense, finish drives, but sometimes it doesn’t go our way. We just have to keep fighting and persevere. I feel like we did that.”
When asked the same question, Ryan Day’s answer was similar.
After acknowledging the question, saying it’s something the Ohio State head coach will have to watch for in film and see, he began to talk about Stroud’s development.
“I think he’s made pretty good decisions up until this point. I think he forced a couple things in there early on, but that’s going to happen with a young quarterback,” Day said. “We’ve got to work through those things. But if there were times where maybe we could run the ball, we’ll have to look at it on film and go from there. But I thought he competed.
“He’s out there as a young quarterback — I guess this is his eighth start — and it’s not easy. It’s just not. When you play in November on the road against teams like this, it’s going to be a grind. It’s going to be hard. There’s going to be learning lessons along the way, but he also did some really good things, threw some very good footballs, made some good decisions. All part of the process.”
Should Stroud have run the ball in those situations? Probably. There’s four or five yards of green grass between him and a first down. When the redshirt freshman is under duress in the pocket, why not just tuck and run, getting the play and get a clean slate?
But I don’t think that’s the question here. I think it’s more about a question of stability.
Is Stroud the guy that will lead Ohio State to the College Football Playoff? Will Stroud give everything in his power to get the Buckeyes within reach of a national championship?
The answer is simple: We don’t know.
Ohio State is used to consistency. From two years of Justin Fields — a dual-threat anomaly that made everything look easy in both the running game and passing game — to J.T. Barrett, who showed a level of toughness basically representing the Urban Meyer era behind center.
Nothing about Ohio State’s quarterback room in 2021 is consistent. It was a battle for the starting job between two redshirt freshmen quarterbacks and a true freshman, adding on a high school senior in the fall who was supposed to be the centerpiece of the 2022 recruiting class.
No one knew what to truly expect from Stroud when he won the starting job. No one knew how different he would be after resting what turned out to be a separated AC joint in his throwing shoulder after the season opener against Minnesota.
After eight starts, Stroud is still somewhat of an unknown entity even with glimpses of stardom. It’s easy to focus on the certainty of those four-to-five yards of green grass, especially when mistakes happen when the quarterback decides to do something else.
Read the rest of the column here.
