Ryan Day: Kyle McCord was good enough to win in Week 1, won't be moving forward

Kyle McCord was good but not great in Ohio State’s season-opening 23-3 win over Indiana. On Tuesday, OSU head coach Ryan Day was brutally honest about his starting quarterback’s performance.

“We both felt the same way,” Day said. “There was some good moments, some good throws, some other things that you wish you had back. When you look at first time starters here in the past, I mean that was probably similar.”

In the comfortable victory, McCord lacked urgency, completing 20 of his 33 pass attempts for 239 yards and one interception. McCord failed to score a touchdown in the contest. McCord’s lackluster performance culminated in a 78.1 quarterback rating.

In fairness, McCord likely suffered from first-game jitters. Heading into Week 1, McCord boasted 12 appearances and one start, which came against Akron in 2021. Now, entering his junior season, more is expected from McCord. Day knows his man behind center must deliver.

“I would have liked to seen him get more snaps. [I would have] liked to see Devin [Brown] get more snaps in the game. That didn’t didn’t happen just because the number of plays,” Day said. “There was a lot of things to learn from but also some some good plays, as well. It was good enough to win in this game, which was the most important thing. But it’s not just Kyle, it’s the offense across the board. It won’t be good enough to reach our goals.”

Kyle McCord does not have firm hold on starting spot

As Day briefly mentioned, McCord isn’t OSU’s only option. McCord battled with Devin Brown this offseason for the starting quarterback spot. While McCord won the battle, the war isn’t over. Nonetheless, Brown didn’t get many opportunities to prove himself last Saturday.

In Ohio State’s win, only threw three passes and played just 6% of the snaps after Day said the goal was to get him “meaningful” snaps in the season opener. Day hopes to find more snaps for Brown this Saturday against Youngstown State.

“Yes, but try to get Devin in more,” Day said. “And as the week goes on, we’ll continue to evaluate it based on how they practice. But yeah, I would’ve liked, again, to get Devin in the game. Like I mentioned after the game, I wanted to do what was best to win the game at the time. That was the first goal. 

“I felt like that was the right thing to do. A little bit was gut, quite honestly. I can’t sit here and tell you the analytics and the way to do that. But this week, would love to get Devin in some more.”