Ryan Day explains balancing Ohio State's QB room

Ohio State has not suffered from a shortage of talent at the quarterback position in recent years, featuring guys like JT Barrett, Dwayne Haskins, Justin Fields and, now, CJ Stroud. But with Stroud more than likely off to the the NFL after the College Football Playoff, Ohio State head coach Ryan Day discussed the balance of talent in the quarterback room in Columbus.

After signing four-star quarterback Lincoln Keinholz out of South Dakota in the 2023 recruiting class, Ohio State now has a fresh face to bring in to the fold and develop under the two guys likely vying for the spot in 2023: Devin Brown and Kyle McCord.

“So, bowl practice has been good,” Day said. “We’ve been able to see both Devin and Kyle compete. That’s been great. But that competition’s going to go in through the spring and we’ll kind of see what we’ve got when we get there.”

McCord has the advantage of an additional year in Columbus and was originally the starting quarterback in 2021 before Stroud seized the role.

But Brown had plenty of pomp and circumstance around his quarterback credentials as one of the top prospects in 2022. Both players certainly have the talent to take on the job and succeed.

For Day, it’s really a matter of seeing which quarterback shifts the balance in their favor.

“It’s delicate, but if someone becomes the clear-cut No. 1, he becomes the clear-cut No. 1 and you go from there. Sometimes you don’t know until you get on the field. You don’t know. I think about some of the situations we’ve had like that. We’ve felt like, at that moment, that we named Dwayne the starter because we felt like he was the starter at that time. And then didn’t want Joe [Burrow] to leave and it was hard for him to leave but he did. And obviously worked out great for him. Other guys, other times, we weren’t sure.”