Ohio State football can’t copy Jim Harbaugh’s extended quarterback audition
Published Jul. 28, 2023, 6:00 a. m.
By Nathan Baird, INDIANAPOLIS — Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said he simply had no other choice. Ohio State football coach Ryan Day may not have the option. The Wolverines’ preseason closed last August with the quarterback competition between Cade McNamara and J.
J. McCarthy too close for Harbaugh to call. He couldn’t make a decision prior to the season opener against Colorado State.
“The fairest thing to do was take it into overtime,” Harbaugh said Thursday at Big Ten Media Days. “It was too close to call in the practice environment. No question practice predicts game performance, but nothing predicts game performance like game performance.
” So McNamara started against the Rams, McCarthy started against Hawaii, and then Harbaugh evaluated the new set of data. He named McCarthy the starter, and the sophomore finished off a 12-0 regular season and return trip to the playoff. Day now faces a quarterback decision he insists remains tight with preseason camp starting Thursday.
He did not dismiss the idea of playing both Kyle McCord and Devin Brown in the season opener Sept. 2 at Indiana. “When you’re in these situations, you’d like someone to emerge during camp,” Day said Wednesday.
“But who knows if that’s going to happen or not? If that doesn’t happen, maybe (playing both) is the case. ” Two big differences in circumstances, though, probably take the extended trail option off the table for Day. The incumbent factor McNamara was the returning starter who led Michigan to a win at OSU and its first playoff berth the previous season.
McCarthy played regularly in a backup and package role. To outsiders, the job objectively belonged to McNamara at that point. Harbaugh would quibble with that definition.
“At any position, nobody really owns the position,” Harbaugh said. “They’re leasing at best — that’s something I understood as a player — and most everybody else is renting. “.
. . You have to earn it.
You have to pay the rent every game. ” Regardless, McNamara’s 2021 success probably earned him the right to an in-game audition. Day does not owe either McCord or Brown the same courtesy, regardless of McCord’s seniority and previous spot start.
Day can make a clean decision in camp without the appearance of stepping on anyone’s toes. The schedule Michigan famously plays a wasteland of a nonconference schedule. The coming season will be its second straight without a Power 5 nonconference opponent.
(To be fair, OSU will walk through that marshmallow minefield next season. ) Asked directly if opening against a Big Ten opponent would have prevented him from pushing the competition into the season, Harbaugh said no. “It’s just what it required,” Harbaugh said.
Ohio State, though, does open with a Big Ten road game at Indiana. The Hoosiers and Western Kentucky, the Buckeyes’ second opponent, are essentially the same caliber of program. (IU beat the Hilltoppers in Bloomington last season.
) The ramifications of losing a conference game, though, are too significant to use as part of an experiment. The first three games give OSU a chance to build cohesion and momentum for the Sept. 23 game at Notre Dame.
The safe bet is to expect a decision from Day on the usual mid-August timetable, or perhaps slightly later. Keeping the competition alive to push both quarterbacks’ development makes a lot of sense. So does allowing the team to fall in behind the player best equipped to beat McCarthy two days after Thanksgiving.
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