Boiling down the quarterback situation at Ohio State this season in a few sentences is not easy. That was true before the season started. True when Cardale Jones remained the starter despite inconsistent play in the first seven games. True when coach Urban Meyer shifted gears in the wake of J.T. Barrett’s improvement in the middle of the season. True when Barrett, after starting one game, was suspended following a citation for allegedly operating a vehicle under the influence. One thing is certain this week, though: Jones will start the game Saturday night against Minnesota. Beyond that: Who knows? Meyer said Monday, “If he’s good enough and if he earns that right,” Barrett could return to the starting role as soon as next week against Illinois. The coach has no rules prohibiting that, but he also made no guarantee it would happen. Two days later, when asked how Jones should look at getting the start this week, Meyer replied, “I would imagine — and I have not talked to him about this — as a competitor and a guy who wants to play, that this is his shot to be the starting quarterback at Ohio State. We’ll worry about next week, next week.” Barrett certainly set the bar high with his performance against Rutgers, which statistically is significantly worse defensively than the Golden Gophers. Though his opportunities have been more limited, Barrett leads the Big Ten in pass efficiency during conference games. He’s also sixth in rushing yards per game (88.3) and has totaled 12 touchdowns in three games while Jones has only three. That is a lot of production — and production is what Meyer cited in announcing the switch to Barrett prior to the Rutgers game — for Jones to overcome in one game, but remember what we said about the OSU QB situation being hard to distill into basics? Jones himself is third in the conference in QB rating during Big Ten games (fourth in all games, where Barrett is still No. 1), and there are reasons Meyer went with Jones as the starter for as long as he did despite some missteps from the quarterback along the way. While he has given some hints, Meyer has not explained all of those reasons in great detail. One he has been clear about was waiting for Barrett to beat Jones out. Will he make him do that again so close to some of the season-defining games against Michigan State and Michigan that are coming up? Could seeing Jones put up the kind of performance he was likely expecting in the first half of the season lead to another change of heart, or has Barrett done enough to establish a new (and at the same time old) identity for the offense that he will still be the man for the final push for the Big Ten championship and the playoff? Or might Meyer even go back to the two-quarterback system he was using mostly successfully against Maryland and Penn State? It could be an easy choice — unless Jones, Barrett or both make it difficult.
Continue Reading: Could Cardale Jones grab the Ohio State starting QB job again?
