Ohio State Football: The consequences of choosing Kyle McCord

The Ohio State football team has decided on a starting quarterback, at least for the opener against IU. That starter is Kyle McCord. He was chosen after having a nice two-week period of consistent play that Ryan Day liked more than what Devin Brown was doing.

We told you what the consequences would be of choosing Brown for the Ohio State football team. Now that a decision has been made, I want to talk about the consequences of choosing Kyle McCord. McCord now has a golden opportunity in front of him.

Day made it clear that both McCord and Brown will play on Saturday against Indiana. But if McCord plays great, he can seal that job for good. That would mean he could be the starter for the rest of the season. If he puts up numbers like Ohio State quarterbacks in the past have, that could mean heading to the NFL next year.

If that does happen, that would mean Brown would have to compete with true freshman Air Noland for the starting job. Brown would obviously have the upper hand in that scenario seeing as he almost won the starting job this year before the opening game.

But if McCord ends up staying for two more years as the starter, things get more complicated. Brown would then have to fight for the job against Noland and Tavien St. Clair, Ohio State’s 2025 quarterback recruit. That would give Noland a better chance to win the job because he would have been in the program for a year.

Picking McCord, and assuming he holds onto the starting job this year, is a lot less messier for future quarterbacks. Brown may only have to wait for one more year to get that starting job, although he’d also fight Lincoln Keinholz for it. But, this is cleaner for the quarterback room.

Day isn’t worried about clean rooms. He’s worried about putting the best possible players out onto the field. He thinks McCord is that guy right now. We’ll see how that goes on Saturday afternoon.