Ryan Day details how not knowing starting QB impacts preparation

Ohio State‘s quarterback competition is coming down to the wire, as Kyle McCord and Devin Brown are continuing to battle over the Buckeyes’ starting job with Week 1 less than two weeks away. Head coach Ryan Day recently took a poll among his staff following the team’s latest scrimmage and said it was nearly split right down the middle regarding who should be the starter.

While a closely contested and competitive battle is great, it’s nearing time for the Buckeyes to start focusing on their opening game versus Indiana rather than their battle under center. And Day was recently asked about how not knowing who his starter is has impacted the team’s preparation for their Week 1 matchup on the road versus the Hoosiers.

“Well I think first is the other team has to prepare for two different guys, I think that’s one thing,” Day said. “Two, we’ll continue to split up the reps the way we have, make sure guys are getting what they need. We’ve been getting a bunch of reps, I still see it the same way.”

The Hoosiers won’t have much film to watch on either Ohio State quarterback ahead of their home opener, with McCord throwing just 58 pass attempts in his young career and Brown throwing zero in his even younger career. But Day believes the way in which his quarterbacks have prepared all offseason has both of them primed and prepared to appear regardless of who wins the job.

“But that’s why we work so hard in the preseason and get all those reps on the two fields to make sure that we’re getting all the looks for the guys. Because you know when you put in a play there’s a lot of looks that can happen on one play. You have to get a bunch of them to really master that play, so we’ve done a bunch of that,” Day explained. “But then we’ll kind of divvy them up the way that’s appropriate based on how we’re gonna play the game.”

Day previously mentioned that he was looking for a sizable gap between his competing quarterbacks and for someone to take a leap and separate themselves. But with the season so close now, he was also asked if he feels that could even possibly still happen.

“1000%,” Day said. “When I met with the guys yesterday I told them that. One guy may just take a step forward and then play the whole game, that could happen, so we’ll see. Everything’s an evaluation right now, but if I sat here right now I think that both deserve to play.”

Both may deserve to play, but will both touch the field for the Buckeyes in Week 1? Only time will tell, but it will definitely be interesting to see how the hard-fought competition unfolds in Columbus with the season right around the corner.