Ryan Day shares Ohio State will have a playing time plan for quarterbacks in Week 1

Ohio State has a starting quarterback for Saturday’s season opening game at Indiana in Kyle McCord, but head coach Ryan Day has made clear he plans for challenger Devin Brown to play as well. And he’s got a plan.

McCord will start the game and Day seems intent on giving him time to settle in and play before going to Brown, who he wants to give “meaningful snaps” to. He’s got it pretty well worked out with his staff, but Day acknowledged the ebbs and flows of the game will shape when and how Brown gets into the game.

“We’re putting together a plan on kind of how we see it play out,” Day said. “And then as the game goes on, we’ll get a feel for what we think gives us the best chance to win. But we’ll certainly have a plan going into the start of the game.”

The plan for Week 1 isn’t necessarily going to be the same for Week 2, either. Day explained earlier in the week that as more game tape gets put down, he’ll have more to go on.

Eventually, one of the two quarterbacks is likely to become the full-time starter as Day has no intentions of a back-and-forth all season long.

“In practice, you see certain things but to get tackled and to move the team down the field, finish off drives, do well on third down, do well in the red zone, that’s going to continue to play itself out during the season. And there’s been teams that have done this similar before,” Day said. “And ultimately I told the guys when I met with them today, the goal is to go win championships. And when the season’s all said and done, the story is going to be written.”

Ohio State can’t afford to, in Day’s words, “ride the rollercoaster every drive, every game.”

As such, it’s not going to be a short leash for either quarterback. One mistake won’t result in them getting “benched,” as Day hesitated to even use the word as such.

“This isn’t going to be a situation where they need to be worried about getting ‘benched’ being in the game. That’s not the case,” Day said. “They have to go play through some of that stuff. CJ [Stroud] kind of went through it his first couple games when he was here as a sophomore. And you just don’t know how it is going to play out.”