It’s probably true for almost every football coach that his best teams usually have been when he had his best quarterbacks. But the quarterbacks Urban Meyer has had the most success with have not only been good, they’ve been a great fit with his power spread offense.
Quarterbacks like Tim Tebow at Florida, Alex Smith at Utah, Braxton Miller and J.T. Barrett at Ohio State and Josh Harris at Bowling Green all were dual threat QBs who were key players in the running game as well as the passing game.
All of them except Barrett threw for at least 5,000 yards in their career and he will reach that level this season. All of them rushed for more than 1,000 yards, ranging from Smith’s 1,072 career yards to Miller’s 3,315 yards.
On national signing day two weeks ago, Meyer made it perfectly clear the ability to run the ball is a necessity for any quarterback who wants to be recruited by Ohio State.
“I don’t say he has to run the ball like Braxton because those are rare guys. But we will not recruit a quarterback that can’t extend the play. We actually like playing against those kind of guys (QBs who cannot run)” he said. “Alex Smith was a run threat. He certainly wasn’t J.T. or Braxton or Tebow, but he was a run threat.”
It also was clear he is excited about the quarterback he recruited this year, 4-star prospect Dwayne Haskins, who is viewed as a passer first but also has the ability to run the ball.
Haskins flipped from Maryland to Ohio State late in the recruiting process after former OSU commitment Tristen Wallace announced in mid-December he would sign with Oregon and switch positions to wide receiver.
Getting someone like him in the 2016 recruiting class became very important after Wallace changed his mind.
“That was a very strenuous moment when the previous commitment decided not to play the position,” Meyer said. “I was in a hotel room in New Jersey when I got the phone call and my mouth went dry.
“Every other quarterback was committed and we started searching the ones who were not committed. And to be quite honest, it wasn’t a very attractive pool of players.”
Haskins had been recruited by Ohio State before Wallace committed to the Buckeyes. Redshirt freshman Joe Burrow is currently the No. 2 QB behind Barrett but Meyer said Haskins “will compete for playing time as a true freshman.”
Some other items:
• NUMBER 20: Kalida’s 2016 Putnam County League boys basketball championship was the 20th the Wildcats have won outright or shared in Dick Kortokrax’s 42 seasons there.
• CAVS TRANSFORMED, OR NOT?: When the Cleveland Cavaliers fired David Blatt and replaced him with Tyronn Lue, the team had a 30-11 record, a winning percentage of .732. In Lue’s first 11 games they are 8-3, a .727 winning percentage.
• HITTING THE THREE: Going into this weekend, Elida’s Reggie McAdams was second in the Mid-American Conference with 64 made 3-pointers. Central Michigan’s John Kozinski, with 65, was the only player ahead of him.
McAdams is averaging 11.0 points a game.
• NFL COMBINE: The 14 Ohio State players invited to the NFL Combine in Indianapolis Feb. 23-29 is more than any other team.
National champion Alabama had nine players invited. Notre Dame, which was OSU’s Fiesta Bowl opponent, will have 10 players there. Seven Michigan State players were invited and two Michigan players got invitations.
The Buckeyes going to the Combine are: Joey Bosa, Ezekiel Elliott, Vonn Bell, Michael Thomas, Nick Vannett, Taylor Decker, Darron Lee, Eli Apple, Cardale Jones, Jalin Marshall, Braxton Miller, Joshua Perry, Tyvis Powell and Adolphus Washington.
• GRADUATE TRANSFER?: The Akron Beacon Journal reported that seldom-used senior Ohio State running back Warren Ball will graduate from OSU and do a graduate transfer to the University of Akron.
Ball gained 189 yards on 41 carries during his Ohio State career and would have been behind Mike Weber, Curtis Samuel and Brionte Dunn at OSU this season if he returned for a fifth year.
Akron already has two former OSU players on its roster — defensive end Se’von Pittman and linebacker Jamar Marcus.
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