Urban Meyer breaks down Ohio State's quarterback battle, challenge naming starter

As teams around the country begin to get ready for spring ball, many like Ohio State will have a tricky quarterback battle to navigate.

In the modern era of college football, the race for playing time is constantly going on. And if someone isn’t getting the job, he’s likely to consider options elsewhere in pretty short order.

“The one thing that you’d like to do is find your guy and find him early and get moving,” former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer said on Urban’s Take with Tim May. “The negative is that if you do that early the other guy will probably leave and then you’re stuck.”

Ohio State is one of the teams that finds itself in that position after losing veteran CJ Stroud to the NFL Draft. A quarterback battle is inevitable.

This spring two will duke it out for the reins of the Ohio State offense, with junior Kyle McCord and redshirt freshman Devin Brown expected to be the primary contenders for the job.

“I’ve not talked directly about that to coach (Ryan) Day, but I’m sure that’s on the back of his mind saying, ‘I’ve got two,'” Meyer explained. “He feels good about those two quarterbacks, they’ve been around, they’re talented. But what happens once you name a starter?”

Balancing act in Ohio State quarterback battle

It’s not an easy balancing act for coaches like Ryan Day when there’s a battle for the starting job in spring practice. The decision must be made carefully, having full awareness of the potential fallout.

Meyer doesn’t think the college quarterback landscape is quite the same as it was when he had multiple quarterback battles as Ohio State head coach.

“We had many battles. I had JT (Barrett) – Cardale (Jones) battle,” Meyer said. “We had Joe Burrow, Dwayne Haskins, two future first-rounders.”

Meyer’s advice? Tread carefully with whatever you do.

“I had other battles that you just kind of want to hang in there as long as you can because, first of all, you want to be fair to both players and the reality is, especially now, they’re gone,” Meyer said. “The day of a third-string quarterback like Cardale Jones hanging around for four years, that’s not going to happen. They’re going to go to greener pastures somewhere and go play.”