Ohio State's last five seasons of Quarterback play point to an issue they may be having with at the quarterback postion.
Usually, when I see a collection of stats on a random X account, I continue to scroll. Not because they aren't right, but mostly because they are often times hard to trust and maybe a bit of a stretch.
However, there was one post on Saturday that caught my attention, and it has to do with Ohio State quarterbacks since 2020. The Buckeyes have had an elite grouping of quarterbacks in the first half of this decade. CJ Stroud, Kyle McCord, Will Howard, and now Julian Sayin have all thrown passes for the Buckeyes, but only one of them has won a National Championship.
The common denominator between each of these players is that only one of them was a threat with his legs, and that one was the only one to hoist the trophy. In two years at the helm, Stroud rushed for zero touchdowns, while McCord didn't run for a score and Sayin in his first year didn't find the paint with his legs. Yet, Howard had a total of eight rushing scores.
The bigger picture conversation here is that not being a dual threat is a major detriment in this day in age in college football. The two semifinal games featured three dual-threat quarterbacks, each of whom balled out, and the fourth, Dante Moore, got run out of the building.
Sayin showed this year that he has enough athleticism to be dangerous behind the line of scrimmage and in the pocket, but he is not a guy who is going to be a threat to run the football. You'll never see a designed quarterback run from Sayin, and the only time he pulls the ball down will be to move the chains. You'll see a 10-yard gain and never an 80-yard touchdown.
As Ohio State tries to find it's way through this transfer portal period that they are getting destroyed in, they are going to have to look at their approach on offense.
Can they run it directly back next year, or do they need to make a philosophical change with their offense and with their quarterback?
It's a scary proposition, and certainly, a stat found on X isn't a reason to make any full swing changes, but the conversation should be had: Is a dual threat quarterback a non-negotiable in today's college football?
Or can they get by with a pocket quarterback slinging it around the field?
Time will tell, but this would be a fascinating conversation inside the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.