Stroud has chance at QB trifecta
C.J. Stroud needs only to complete three little items on his to-do list to become the biggest to-do in Ohio State quarterback history.
1. Beat Michigan
2. Win the Heisman Trophy
3. Win a national championship Nothing to it.
It’s not like he has to replace a light bulb or hang a picture. Just beat the Wolverines, pose with the bronze statuette in NYC and outlast Alabama in the College Football Playoff title game and the two-year starter moves atop the list of all-time greats. That’s all.
Complete that trifecta and Stroud goes down as the best ever to play the position. Better than Rex Kern. Better than Troy Smith. Better than Justin Fields. Better than anyone.
Try to prove me wrong.
“If you win the national title and beat Michigan, that automatically gets you on a very short list,” former Ohio State quarterback Bob Hoying said.
Add a Heisman Trophy and the list gets shorter, as in none. No Ohio State quarterback has ever defeated UM, won the Heisman and led the Buckeyes to a national championship either in a single season or over a career. (Les Horvath played halfback when Ohio State won the 1942 title and quarterback when he won the 1944 Heisman).
On a scale of difficulty, Smith came closest in 2006 when he beat Michigan and won the Heisman before leading the Buckeyes into the BCS title game against Urban Meyer’s Florida Gators, who rushed off the edge to chomp Smith like he was a scarlet and gray marshmallow, which – after his Heisman hangover – he kind of was.
Smith’s double-not-quite-triple-play stands out over the twofers collected by George Lynn (1942), Dave Leggett (1954), Frank Kremblas (1957), Kern (1968) and Craig Krenzel (2002) because of winning the Heisman, which is based on individual play.
That may sound counterintuitive; after all, those five QBs all won national titles in addition to beating Michigan. (Cardale Jones finished but did not start the 2014 Michigan game, so no credit there). Shouldn’t team success trump all? In many cases, yes, but Smith came closer to winning a championship – if you can call losing 41-14 to Florida close – than any of OSU’s title-winning QBs came to winning the Heisman. None finished in the top-five of Heisman voting. (J.T. Barrett finished fifth in 2014 but did not finish the Michigan game due to injury and did not play the last three games of the season, including the playoff wins against Alabama and Oregon, so no credit there.).
Smith also was the first quarterback to go 3-0 against Michigan, but that loss to Florida, during which his performance suffered as the Gators pressured him constantly, leaves the door open for Stroud.
What about Fields? After all, in a Columbus Dispatch poll conducted last August readers ranked Fields No. 1 with 455 out of 1,936 votes (23.49%). Smith finished second with 387 (19.99) followed by Kern with 296 (15.29). Those were the clear top three, but Fields benefited from being the latest, not necessarily the greatest. No question he deserves to be in the top three, and would be a strong candidate for No. 1 if the Buckeyes had won a national title – he finished third in the 2019 Heisman voting – but without the natty it’s hard to pick him over a Heisman winner who went 3-0 against TTUN.
After Stroud completed 24 of 33 passes for 406 yards and five touchdowns against Maryland in October, I compared him to Fields. From the social media blowback, you would have thought I compared Daniel Day-Lewis to Jerry Lewis (Google him, kids).
Now? Stroud should be the one insulted by the comparison. He’s that good. And he gets one more season to show it before jumping to the NFL.
Hoying, who finished fifth in the Dispatch’s best-quarterback poll, sees in Stroud the potential to end up No. 1.
“The biggest thing is how fast the ball comes out of his hands,” Hoying said. “It means he’s processing a lot of information before the snap and knows where his initial read is. And he does a great job getting to his second and third option. Most quarterbacks, it’s hard to get past the second. I saw that in NFL camps. They’re great if the first guy is open, but if they’re getting chased and things are breaking down, how fast can they get through (the progressions)?”
Hoying excelled at seeing the field and knowing instinctively where to go with the ball. Joe Germaine, too. Fields ranks right up there, but to my eyes Stroud is the best at the combination of reading the defense, seeing the play develop and delivering the ball on time into windows where only the receiver can catch it.
That said, he has only flashed for one season, and some among Buckeye Nation think the redshirt sophomore has the mark of the devil: 0-1 against Michigan. He needs to clean that up this season if he is to become the best ever. And a win against Michigan likely means making the playoff.
I know that kind of talk makes many fans nervous. Don’t count your chickens, jinxes and all that other superstitious mumbo jumbo. Bah. I expect Stroud to have a big game against Notre Dame in the Sept. 3 opener, the defense to perform better than last season – it couldn’t be any worse, unless injuries deplete the secondary – and the Buckeyes to be undefeated entering the playoff.
That’s applying a lot of preseason pressure, but it’s not far-fetched. Neither is it a reach to think Stroud can hit the trifecta. And if he does? It won’t be just king for a day in Columbus. He will rule for decades.