Ohio State has had some fantastic quarterbacks in the last 25 years. Ranking them is no easy task. The most important criterion for any athlete in sports is winning. The next is the overall impact they have on their team or sport, and there’s no sport where that is more important than college football.
A big way of measuring that impact is by seeing how the team and Buckeye quarterbacks did after a particular player’s success. Individual stats and records often overexaggerate a player’s greatness. While they are important and fun, they are well behind winning and impact.
1. Craig Krenzel
Krenzel probably had the most modest stats of any of the top ten Buckeye quarterbacks in the 21st century but he also made the most clutch throws and runs of any of them as well, and he did so in the most conservative passing offense of this century (maybe in half a century) for Ohio State.
Krenzel led Ohio State to the most improbable season and championship against the biggest odds and foes in Ohio State history. #16 was a master of Tresselball, but if you put him with his same intelligence, toughness, and skill in an Urban Meyer or Ryan Day offense, he’s still going to succeed and win. He set the table for everyone else on this list. That’s why Craig Krenzel is #1.
2-4. Cardale Jones, J.T. Barrett, and Braxton Miller
Jones, Barrett, and Miller are #2-#4 and without distinction because their success was inseparable from each other. Take one of them away, and the 2014 National Championship isn’t won.
Take one of them away, and the success of Ohio State from 2012 through 2017 doesn’t happen. The Cerberus they were, required all three of them to eat and dominate. Braxton Miller kept Ohio State at an elite level and made the transition from Jim Tressel to Urban Meyer as smooth as it was.
J.T. Barrett is a four-year starter and record setter who set the table for Cardale Jones’ run, which was unprecedented. It has never been (and likely won’t be in my life) repeated. Just ask 2024 Georgia if it’s easy to replace your season-long starter right before the playoffs.