Ohio State Football: Quarterback now a major question

The Ohio State football team has a quarterback controversy. After some rocky outings by C.J. Stroud to start the season, he sat out Ohio State’s 59-7 victory over Akron with a shoulder injury. Kyle McCord instead got the start and put up some big numbers.

Like some of Stroud’s numbers early on, his numbers are misleading. McCord threw for 319 yards, but a lot of those yards were due to big after-the-catch numbers. Emeka Egbuka’s 85-yard catch was mostly him running in space. One of McCord’s touchdowns was a pop pass to Chris Olave.

That’s not to say that McCord didn’t have his moments. The threat of him throwing down the field opened up the offense in a better way than Stroud had been. Stroud has been afraid to open it up through the air. Whether the injury is the reason or not remains to be seen.

With neither quarterback looking great and having a stranglehold over the starting job, this week is going to be very interesting. Both quarterbacks have a case to be the starter moving forward. I think McCord has the better ceiling, but I can’t get over that interception he threw.

That pick was never close to being a completion. It was in the middle of two Akron players. It’s decisions like that in practice that kept him from winning the starting job in the first place. Perhaps that is why I think Stroud ends up starting this week against Rutgers.

I tend to believe that Stroud’s shoulder injury isn’t that serious. If it was, he wouldn’t have played the last few weeks. McCord really had a chance to take firm hold of the starting job and couldn’t do it. Because their play has been so close to each other, I think Stroud gets the nod.

We’ll see if that ends up being the right decision or not moving forward. A bad game against Rutgers, a team that could sneak up on the Buckeyes if they aren’t careful, could once again open the door for McCord to jump ahead.

Ryan Day has a very interesting decision to make!