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 QBs struggling to find the field in college. This is the ninth article in the first wave.
No time for losers. They were the champions − 16 times over.
Coach Larry Kehres won 11 NCAA Division III national championships at Mount Union. Coach Jim Tressel bagged four NCAA Division I-AA national titles at Youngstown State and a Division I national crown at Ohio State.
They are sage observers as college football toddles through the era of the transfer portal and the “name, image, likeness” (NIL) marketplace.
They wonder. Who wins?
They agree. Something is lost.
“How did the NCAA let this get away from them?” Kehres asks.
“I don’t know that it’s the healthiest thing,” says Tressel.
They agree again: A new world for quarterbacks and their coaches is evolving. Grin and bear it.
During Tressel’s 10 seasons at Ohio State, 2001-10, transfers from one major-college program to another had to sit out a year.
“There was no one tugging at those guys and saying, ‘You should be starting somewhere … go in the portal,'” Tressel said. “It was such a different time, and it’s funny. It’s not that long ago.”
Tressel managed a succession of battles among quarterbacks he recuited from within modest driving distance of Columbus:
First it was Craig Krenzel, from Sterling Heights, Michigan, vs. Scott McMullen, from Granville, Ohio.
Then it was Troy Smith, from Cleveland, vs. Justin Zwick, from Massillon.
After that it was Todd Boeckman, from St. Henry, Ohio, vs. Terrelle Pryor, from Jeannette, Pennsylvania.
The portal didn’t exist then, and neither did name-image-likeness (NIL) money.
Pryor and four teammates were suspended for the first five games in 2011 for trading autographs and memorabilia for money and tattoos.
Now, such activity is a legal cross between chicken feed and child’s play in the world of NIL. Then, it violated NCAA rules, leading to Tressel’s resignation and Pryor’s withdrawal from Ohio State.
Freshman Braxton Miller, from Huber Heights Wayne High School near Dayton, became the primary quarterback in 2011 under interim head coach Luke Fickell.
“Ohio’s team” is less about Ohio and vicinity than it used to be.
Recent Ohio State starting quarterbacks have come from Potomac, Maryland (Dwayne Haskins); Kennesaw, Georgia (Justin Fields); Rancho Cucamongo, California (C.J. Stroud), and Mount Laurel, New Jersey (Kyle McCord).
Tressel took a quick trip back through Buckeye QB competitions he oversaw.
“Steve Bellisari had the job when I got there,” he said. “Then Craig Krenzel and Scotty McMullen kind of battled it out. Craig pulled ahead and was the starter in ’02 and ’03.
“Craig got banged up in the Penn State game in ’03. Scotty came in and won it. After they graduated, it was a battle between Justin and Troy. Troy edged ahead and started for 2 1/2 years.
“Todd Boeckman started after Troy and had a real good year in ’07. Then in ’08 Terrelle Pryor came in and after the second or third game he moved ahead of Todd.
“Through it all, we always felt we had two guys.”
None of the above transferred out.
Had the portal existed, No. 2s McMullen, Zwick and Boeckman could have shopped for a team inclined to elevate them to QB1 with no waiting.
“I probably would have looked into it,” Zwick told the Repository.
The topic jogs Tressel’s memory of his Youngstown State teams winning Division I-AA national championships in 1991, 1993, 1994 and 1997.
“We wanted to play 15 games every year,” he said. “We had the mindset of always having two quarterbacks good enough to win a national championship. We would play more than one quarterback early in the year to have someone ready.
“You don’t want someone’s first snap to be when he’s got to go win a game for you.
“We had plenty of practices. Usually things sorted themselves out. It didn’t mean it couldn’t change, but we didn’t often go back and forth down to the end.
“You know the old saying with quarterbacks. If you have two, you have none.”
College football’s expanding QB-go-round wouldn’t fit in an amusement park. Tressel’s old schools ride the carousel.
Mark Waid was a record-setting passer at Girard, eight miles from Youngstown State’s Stambaugh Stadium. He spent 2020 and 2021 at YSU before transferring to Bentley (Massachussetts) and starting in 2022 and ’23.
Demeatric Crenshaw, fom Pickerington, started the Penguins’ first four games in 2022, at which point he was replaced by Mitch Davidson. Crenshaw hit the portal and landed at Tennessee State.
At Ohio State, McCord was a 2021 freshman when he threw for 319 yards against Akron while replacing the injured Stroud. Stroud healed. McCord was the top backup for two seasons before starting in 2023, when the Buckeyes were 11-0 and ranked No. 2…
The Repository
