Next QB must meet ‘Buckeye standard’
Ohio State QB coach happy with how new QBs understand offense.
Ohio State football COLUMBUS — coach Ryan Day has explained what he is looking for in a starting quarterback and when he might think he has one. Mike Yurcich got his say Sunday. “Well, I think there is a standard of quarterback play around here for a long time that’s been what we need, the Buckeye standard at quarterback,” Yurcich, the first-year Ohio State quarterbacks coach said. “And when we see that we’ll move forward.”
That is not a level that will be easy to attain.
Ohio State has had the Big Ten Quarterback of the Year six of the last seven seasons, and more than half of the Chicago Tribune Silver Football winners since 2012 have been Ohio State quarterbacks, too.
The group of Braxton Miller, J.T. Barrett and Dwayne Haskins also helped the Buckeyes to three Big Ten championships and seven conference division titles.
After Miller proved to be one of the most dangerous dual-threat quarterbacks in memory, Barrett threw for 9,434 yards and 104 touchdowns (both school records) while Haskins set Big Ten single-season records with 4,831 yards and 50 touchdown passes last season.
Yurcich lamented not being able to use wins as a separator for his current crop of quarterbacks since none of them have started a game in scarlet and gray, but he did lay out how he expects to see the competition between Justin Fields, Gunnar Hoak and Chris Chugunov to play out.
“I think after we get into it for a couple weeks, and we’re able to put some live scrimmages together and try to simulate the game as much as possible we’ll have a better feel for for what that timeline is and who that’s going to be,” Yurcich said.
Through three days, he was able to observe progress they made in developing chemistry with their receivers in the offseason and said he was happy with the overall understanding of the offense the group has shown.
“I think from an intellectual standpoint, I think we understand our schemes, more protections, progressions, these defensive identification, all the adjustments we have to make,” Yurcich said. “There’s so much to it, and we have to cover it all. And then once you cover it all, you have to go back and start again and break it down even more and keep repping it. It’s all a matter of repetition.”
■ In his first time meeting with the local media since transferring from Kentucky, Hoak did not come across like much of a rebel.
He wore a typical red (or scarlet if you prefer) shirt with “OHIO STATE” across the front and a Nike “swoosh” below the collar, taking questions for about 10 minutes before his media obligations were finished seeming to have no problem explaining why he went against the grain in choosing to continue his career in Columbus.
“Just great tradition,” said the Central Ohio native said. “I’ve got a family legacy. I wanted to come home and just be a part of the tradition here. It’s awesome, great path to take, and I just wanted to be a part of it.”
His affinity for Ohio State makes sense.
His father, Frank, played for the Buckeyes, and so did uncle Fred Pagac Sr. and cousin Fred Pagac Jr.
The elder Pagac was also a longtime assistant coach in Columbus and the architect of the original Silver Bullets defense in the late 1990s.
After starring at Dublin Coffman High School and spending three seasons at Kentucky, he decided to enter the NCAA transfer portal and explore his options aside from likely backing up Terry Wilson for another season.
That, too, fit perfectly into the current trend for backup quarterbacks across the country.
But why in April choose a school that recently added Fields, a five-star talent widely perceived to be the quarterback-in-waiting as soon as he stepped onto campus?
“It’s kind of different,” Hoak acknowledged. “Coming home, that’s one of the bigger parts of it. Like I’ve been saying, the tradition here at Ohio State, that’s always been a dream of mine, ever since I was a little kid. I came to a ton of games here. So that was a huge part of it, coming here and being a part of this team.”
He said upon entering the transfer portal he received interest from Ohio State almost immediately. Also in the mix were “a few smaller schools” he didn’t name and Texas State, Eastern Michigan Western Kentucky and Rutgers.
Ultimately, the pull of home was strongest for the 2016 247Sports Composite three-star recruit, but he gets why others might be puzzled he chose a place his chances to get on the field might be slim.
“I understand,” he said. “At Kentucky, that was how I went. You’ve just got to compete every single day, no matter what.
“When I left there and I came here, I’m still competing. So I never have that mentality of ‘I’m giving up.’ So you’ve always got to come out every practice and compete, show the coaches what you’ve got, show the team what you’ve got and go out there and do the best you can and the coaches will decide who the best guy is and we’ll roll with it.”