Editor’s note: Steve Doerschuk spent months researching quarterbacks. The result is three waves of a series, “Year of the Quarterback.” The first wave revolves around tremendous high school quarterbacks fighting to find the field in college. This is the sixth article in the first wave.
It’s hard to find the field in college.
Even for Mr. Football.
At the start …
You were the best quarterback your high school has ever seen. You won the award given to the best player in Ohio. Your college options were immense.
And then …
Some combination of competition, circumustance, injury, coaching caprice, roster arrivals and tough luck turn you into Plan B.
Joe Burrow is Exhibit A. He was Ohio Mr. Football for 2014.
He starred at Athens High School, a few miles from where his dad, Jim, was an assistant coach for the Ohio University Bobcats.
Young Joe came out of junior high billed as a basketball whiz. His football side caught up when he threw 47 touchdown passes an Athens sophomore.
From 2012-14, the football Bulldogs scored like the hoops squad, topping 50 points 27 times.
Before Burrow’s senior year, on the first day Urban Meyer urged him to come to Ohio State, it was a quick yes.
Upon committing, Burrow told the Columbus Dispatch, “I can’t just bust out a 4.3-second 40 like Braxton Miller, but I think by next year, I’ll be able to legitimately compete for playing time.”
An enegized Burrow dove into his senior season and came out with 63 TD passes, versus just two interceptions.
The last splash came in the 2014 OHSAA Division III state finals. Burrow’s Bulldogs lost 56-52 to Toledo Central Catholic, but a 446-yard, six-touchdown day only swelled his reputation.
Central Catholic coach Greg Dempsey, reminiscing several years later, told the Cincinnati Enquirer, “He was already a legend.”
It was as if unseen forces were working up Buckeyes magic.
There hadn’t been a state championship game in Ohio Stadium, home of the Buckeyes, in 25 years. There was Burrow, in his last game before becoming a Buckeye, lighting up “The Horseshoe” on a Thursday night.
Two days later, Ohio State smashed Wisconsin 59-0 in the Big Ten Championship Game. The Buckeyes went on to win the national championship.
It turned out there was no chance Burrow would start in 2015 as a true freshman, since J.T. Barrett and Cardale Jones returned from the national title team.
Barrett, from Wichita Falls, Texas, arrived in Columbus in 2013, when the starter was Miller, a third-year Buckeye from the Dayton area.
Miller left the equation with a shoulder injury that caused him to sit out 2014.
Barrett landed the starting job and got on a roll that lasted all the way to the Michigan game, in which he broke an ankle.
Jones, a third-year Buckeye from Cleveland, took the reins in wins over Michigan, Wisconsin, Alabama and Oregon, which left the Buckeyes kings of college football in Meyer’s third season.
Here’s what glued Burrow to the Buckeyes bench after that.
Ohio State 2015: Cardale Jones and J.T. Barrett split time at quarterback
Miller returned from his year off and agreed to move to H-back. Playing time at quarterback was split evenly between Jones, who attempted 175 passes, and Barrett, who attempted 147.
Jones regressed. Barrett got suspended for one game after a DUI arrest. Yet, the Buckeyes were 10-0 when Barrett faced No. 9 Michigan State. He had a rough game in a 17-14 defeat, the only loss in a 12-1 year.
A week after the exasperating loss, Barrett went the distance in a 42-13 win at Michigan.
Burrow sat and took a redshirt.
Ohio State 2016: J.T. Barrett is QB1, with Joe Burrow as QB2
Jones and Miller left for the NFL, but Barrett was back.
Burrow moved up to No. 2, but he appeared only in a few blowouts, in which he completed 22 of 28 passes.
Barrett’s third straight win over Michigan, 17-16, put the Buckeyes in the national semifinals, where they took an embarrassing 31-0 loss to a Clemson team quarterbacked by Deshaun Watson.
Ohio State 2017: J.T. Barrett remains starter, Dwayne Haskins emerges
Again, Barrett was back, the leader of a team ranked No. 2 in the USA in the preseason.
Burrow came out of spring as the top backup, but he broke a hand days before the opener, elevating Dwayne Haskins, a second-year Buckeye from Maryland, to…
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