Ryan Day: Quinn Ewers currently unavailable to practice

On the day C.J. Stroud was named as Ryan Day’s starting quarterback, the Ohio State head coach also mentioned that star freshman Quinn Ewers is unavailable to practice.

“He started out early on and we were kind of getting him indoctrinated into the offense and everything like that,” Day said in a Saturday press conference. “He’s been unavailable the last couple days. We’ll get him back here at the end of next week.

“It’s been hard for him to step in and then become unavailable. But I think the guys have done a good job … they see somebody who doesn’t have the recruiting class with him, but they’ve done a good job of reaching out to make sure he’s good.  We’ll get him back towards the end of next week and then we’ll get back to work.”

Naturally, Day was asked why Ewers is unavailable to practice. 

“It’s a physical thing,” Day responded, when asked if Ewers’ absence was eligibility or physical related. 

Quinn Ewers arrived at Ohio State earlier this week

The highly-touted quarterback arrived in Columbus last Sunday, and officially joined Ohio State’s football team. Ewers was ranked as the top prospect in the 2022 recruiting class. He elected to reclassify and enroll at Ohio State as part of the 2021 class instead.

First reported by Lettermen Row’s Austin Ward, Ewers has now officially enrolled at Ohio State and is on the football roster. He also has his jersey number.

“Quinn Ewers is officially enrolled and part of the Ohio State program,” tweeted Ward. “He will wear jersey No. 3.”

Quinn Ewers comes in as arguably the nation’s top overall prospect

There have been 16 five-star quarterbacks in 247Sports rankings since 2018, and Ewers is one of them. Additionally, Ewers tied with former Clemson quarterback and now NFL first overall pick Trevor Lawrence for the highest rating.

On3’s national director of football recruiting, Chad Simmons, said that Ewers is unlikely to impact Ohio State right away.

“It shouldn’t really impact Ohio State all that much this season with him coming in weeks before the first game,” Simmons said. “He is a special talent, and the number 1 player in the country for multiple reasons. But he’s not going to show up at Ohio State weeks before the season starts and be expected to make a significant impact. What this does for him though is start he clock on when he can be eligible for the NFL Draft. Of course, the NIL is the biggest reason all this happened. So he will benefit financially from that as well when he officially starts at Ohio State. If all works out perfectly for him, he will be at Ohio State for three seasons, starting two, making money because of NIL, and then a young NFL draftee in 2024.”

On3’s Jonathon Wagner contributed to this article.