JD PicKell: Ohio State's makeover questioned for coming season

On3’s JD PicKell is back at it again, breaking down some of the storylines following college football spring practices. On a recent episode of The Hard Count, PicKell gives his thoughts on Ohio State‘s outlook for the coming season.

“Now, the second-best odds in Vegas got Ohio State at plus-600. My question for them, similar to Georgia, a little bit different but similar, does this Ferrari have a driver? A fancy way of saying you got Devin Brown, you got Kyle McCord, two five-star options. Not bad. A lot of people would give their left arm and a special teams unit to be able to have that problem,” said PicKell.

But I love what they have personnel-wise. Marvin Harrison Jr. probably could have been a top-five pick this season. Dude, is that good. The personnel on the defensive side, I think, is what gets slept on. JT Tuimoloau, I’ve told you on here, all-Big Ten written all over him. I love what I have with Jack Sawyer on the defensive end. I love Tommy Eichenberg, the leader of that defense coming back. What they did in the portal; Ja’Had Carter at safety, Denzel Burke at corner. I love all the pieces here at Ohio State.”

Ohio State has a ton of talent returning for the defense. Offensively, the Buckeyes have to answer a tough question: who will replace the no. 2 pick of the 2023 NFL draft at quarterback CJ Stroud?

“So, the car is built really nice. We know we can go full throttle with this thing; do we have a driver? You have a Ferrari; you take that thing 100 miles an hour, that’s great. But if you crash the car, it’s on the driver. Doesn’t matter how fast the car is if you are steering off the road every now and then.

“CJ Stroud, there’s a lot of the narrative around about how he didn’t beat Michigan, and Ohio State didn’t look great those days. Listen, he still went over three bills in those games. If you don’t have a quarterback, like CJ Stroud, what are the games look like final score? I don’t know… But I just think that question has to be asked; do you have a driver at Ohio State to run this Ferrari?”

The Buckeyes have some tough questions to answer heading into 2023, especially the quarterback position. Still, they are highly favored by Vegas to take home the 2024 national championship. Suppose Ohio State can solve the conundrum they have at quarterback. In that case, they will prove all the doubters wrong and capture the final championship in this iteration of the College Football Playoff.