Ohio State has been a bit of a disappointment this year. Sure, they’re still undefeated and No. 1 in both rankings, but a worrying number of games in which they failed to pull away early has created a sense that they are this year’s Florida State, a defending champ sleepwalking through the regular season and waiting to get exposed by a plucky upstart in the College Football Playoff.
The most visible reason for this iffy play is at quarterback, the position considered the Buckeyes’ greatest asset in preseason. Junior Cardale Jones, hero of Twitter and the postseason, landed on the bench after seven games of mediocre play. To replace him, sophomore J.T. Barrett, the new starter and the old starter, came out and promptly lit everything on fire.
This was a continuation of what Barrett did in 2014, back when he was a Heisman contender as a freshman until an unfortunate broken ankle left the door open for Jones. In the air, he was 14-of-18 for 223 passing yards and three touchdowns. On the ground, 101 rushing yards on 13 attempts and another two touchdowns. In total, he’s accounted for a total of 50 passing and rushing touchdowns as a starter. That’s in 13 games.
With J.T. Barrett under center, Ohio State looked like the No. 1 team in the country as they incinerated Rutgers 49-7.
With J.T. Barrett as the signal caller playing like he did last Saturday, Ohio State might incinerate everybody.
