INDIANAPOLIS — Throughout his time at Lucas Oil Stadium on Wednesday for the opening of this year’s Big Ten Media Days event, Ohio State head coach Ryan Day was presented with one opportunity after another to make a declarative statement about his team’s quarterback competition between Kyle McCord and Devin Brown, a duel that began the moment C.J. Stroud declared for the NFL Draft.
Conventional wisdom among reporters who cover the Buckeyes on a daily basis said that McCord, who is entering his third season in Columbus, had the upper hand over Brown, a rising sophomore. Their evaluations were based on the portions of Ohio State’s spring practices left open to the media and the fractured pinky on Brown’s throwing hand that sidelined him for both the spring game and a few weeks beyond. Some of the writers believed McCord’s lead was commanding; others maintained that the door was open for Brown to make a surge in the first few weeks of fall camp.
And when Day was asked about the competition from seemingly every angle the same line of questioning could be posed, he sided with the folks who think the race between McCord and Brown remains essentially neck and neck.
“It’s a close battle, for sure,” Day said. “And they’re both going to be competing to play. It’s not like we have an incumbent. You think about the last few competitions, certainly Dwayne (Haskins) and Joe (Burrow) was in the spring, and that shook out a certain way. But really when you talk about Justin (Fields) and C.J. (Stroud), those were a little bit different. This one is close, so these guys are going to continue to battle.”
Exactly how truthful Day was with his responses is something only he knows, and there are myriad reasons why he might have framed the quarterback battle the way he did.
The cleanest rationale is that Day was being completely honest, that McCord failed to pull away while Brown was injured, so the competition really is still anyone’s game. Or perhaps McCord truly does have the lead the way most Ohio State beat writers saw it this spring. And perhaps by describing the situation as being closer than it actually is, Day believes he can discourage McCord from carrying himself like he’s in the clear.
“I think the only thing that Kyle has an edge right now, just in terms of all of it, is just that he’s been here for another year,” Day said, “so he’s got more and more reps under his belt. But I don’t have it as a percentage (between them) right now. I’m interested to see what these first couple weeks look like.”
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A corollary to either aforementioned scenario, to the way Day phrased his answers all afternoon, is that Brown becomes less likely to enter the transfer portal if he can still visualize a path toward the starting job. It’s the same rationale Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh factored into last year’s showdown between incumbent Cade McNamara and former five-star recruit J.J. McCarthy, who wasn’t named the starter until Week 3. By extending his quarterback competition into the regular season, Harbaugh ensured the Wolverines kept two quality quarterbacks in Ann Arbor for at least a few months longer.
When Day was asked if he would consider using both quarterbacks during the regular season, especially if neither player seizes control of the job in fall camp, he left open the possibility. Neither McCord nor Brown was in Indianapolis for Big Ten Media Days.
“When you go into these situations,” Day said, “you’d like for someone to emerge during camp. But who knows if that’s going to happen or not. You’d like to see somebody emerge, and then you name them — just like we’ve done with C.J. and Justin and Dwayne. If that doesn’t happen, then maybe that is the case [with playing both in the regular season]. We’ll have to evaluate it from there. We’ll see.”
Though Day never spoke specifically about protecting his roster against the transfer portal — the same way Harbaugh deflected those questions last summer — he spent a good chunk of time explaining the ways in which Ohio State can benefit from having four scholarship quarterbacks on the roster this season. In addition to McCord and Brown, the Buckeyes added Oregon State transfer Tristan Gebbia over the winter and welcomed four-star freshman Lincoln Kienholz (No. 190 overall, No. 15 QB) to campus this summer.
“This is one of the first times, you know, that we’ve been here and we have depth in that room,” Day said. “So we’re going to need that whole room. We know the stories of (seasons when) we needed everybody in that room. For instance, when Justin was there and when C.J. was there and we didn’t have a lot of depth, you had to be very, very careful about running the quarterback. Maybe this year we have an opportunity to do some more things like that because we have more depth in that room.”
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Once again, Day reiterated his hope that either McCord or Brown can separate themselves sooner rather than later. His preference would be to name a starter by the second or third week of camp as he’s done for past competitions at Ohio State.
To get there, both players will split first-team reps the same way they did during spring ball, and Day said the coaching staff’s goal is to challenge the quarterbacks with as many game-like scenarios as possible. Third-down efficiency and red zone efficiency will be critical pieces of his overall evaluation.
“It’s when the play needs to be made, does it get made?” Day said. “It’s one thing to throw, you know, a completion in 7-on-7 on a Tuesday, second period. It’s another thing on third-and-4 during a scrimmage to make that throw, or make that red zone throw and catch on third-and-2.
“I can’t give you, like, one thing (that I’m looking for from each player), but you know those really important plays that have to be made. And those are the ones that separate you from scoring touchdowns and being as good as we’ve been on offense and just being average.”
The competition continues.
Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. Follow him on Twitter at @Michael_Cohen13.
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