Kyle McCord takes the spotlight as Ohio State’s starting quarterback as the Buckeyes open their road-heavy 2023 schedule with a conference game at Indiana on Saturday.
After eight months of preparation that culminated with 25 preseason practices over the month, the Buckeyes are hungry to play football against someone other than themselves and begin showing the world what they are capable of this season.
It’s a season opener that carries more weight than some years, as the Buckeyes will begin the season by playing a Big Ten opponent on the road, but they’d be excited for Saturday no matter who they were playing. “With it being Indiana, it could be anybody. We're excited to finally play somebody who has a different jersey,” Xavier Johnson said Wednesday. “And so we're gonna go out there, put our best foot forward and I think we're gonna like what we see.”The question that’s dominated Ohio State’s entire offseason was finally answered on Tuesday – at least for the first game of the season – when Ryan Day announced that Kyle McCord will be the Buckeyes’ starting quarterback against Indiana. McCord will be making the second start of his career, having previously started one game as a true freshman against Akron in 2021 when C.J. Stroud was sidelined by a shoulder injury. McCord performed well in that start, completing 13 of 18 passing attempts for 319 yards and two touchdowns with one interception in his collegiate debut, but the stakes will be higher this time around. While Indiana’s pass defense isn’t expected to be stout – the Hoosiers ranked 120th in the FBS in passing yards allowed per game last year, and they have an inexperienced secondary – it’s still a Big Ten opponent. And McCord faces the pressure of trying to lock down a starting job he hasn’t fully won yet. While Day said McCord earned the opportunity to start against Indiana with his consistency in practice over the last two weeks, Day also said he intends to give Devin Brown “meaningful snaps” against the Hoosiers, leaving the door open for the starting quarterback competition to continue Saturday and potentially beyond. It’s uncertain what that will look like, given that Ohio State has never had a quarterback competition extend into the season since Day arrived in Columbus, but it is certain that the quarterback storyline will add intrigue to a game that the Buckeyes are heavily favored to win. The most important task for Ohio State on Saturday is to simply win the game, and Day can’t allow an ongoing quarterback competition to get in the way of that. But every pass McCord and Brown throw on Saturday will be evaluated as McCord looks to prove he should be Ohio State’s starter all year long while Brown will look to give the Buckeyes reason to keep the competition going.It’s not too often that Ohio State begins the season with a road game – the Buckeyes have only started their season away from home twice in the last seven years – but playing away from the friendly confines of Ohio Stadium is something the Buckeyes will have to be comfortable with this season. With only six home games on the schedule, Ohio State is set to play six true road games in the regular season for the first time since 1895. “This year, we have to win a bunch of games on the road. So no better place to start than a conference game on the road,” Day said this week. “We talked about it, when we looked at the schedule when it came out, that we were gonna have to be able to handle some of the environments on the road in this conference.” Ohio State’s recent history of opening the season with a Big Ten game on the road suggests it’s not an easy task. When Ohio State opened the season at Indiana in a Thursday night game in 2017, the Buckeyes trailed the Hoosiers 14-13 at halftime – and 21-20 with less than five minutes to play in the third quarter – before pulling away late to win 49-21. When Ohio State again opened the season with a Thursday night conference road game against Minnesota in 2021, the Buckeyes trailed 14-10 at halftime – and 21-17 midway through the third quarter – before going on to win 45-31. With a schedule that includes away games against Notre Dame, Wisconsin and Michigan this season, though, Saturday’s game will give the Buckeyes a first taste of playing on the road in a year where they’ll need to be able to perform well away from home. The Buckeyes are embracing the challenge. “Coming into a road environment, you just have to band with your brothers,” left guard Donovan Jackson said Wednesday. “There’s thousands of people booing you, thousands of people wishing you miss the play, but as long as you have the 11 guys on the field with you, that's all you need.”Quick Hits: Ohio State Players Ready to Play Indiana, Josh Fryar Talks About Starting at Right Tackle in His Home State and Xavier Johnson Calls Wearing Block O “Surreal”Outside of the nearly complete roster overhaul at Deion Sanders’ Colorado, few college football rosters look more different from last season than Indiana’s. The Hoosiers return only eight starters from last season, the fourth-fewest among FBS schools, and their roster for the 2023 season includes 48 new players, 32 of whom were added via the transfer portal. The changes on the defensive side of the ball are particularly stark, where the Hoosiers lost nine of their top 10 tacklers from last season. There are a few more familiar faces on the offensive side of the ball, including 2022 leading receiver Cam Camper and running backs Josh Henderson and Jaylin Lucas, though the Hoosiers have declined to name a starting quarterback following a preseason competition between Tennessee transfer Tayven Jackson and redshirt freshman Brendan Sorsby. The bigger-picture question for the Hoosiers is whether their transfer additions will make them more competitive after back-to-back losing seasons in which they won just six combined games. While Indiana was one of the feel-good stories of the 2020 season when it went 6-2 and Tom Allen was named the AFCA Coach of the Year, that momentum has been drained out of the program over the past two years, putting Allen on the hot seat entering 2023. Opening against Ohio State won’t make it easy for Indiana to start the year with a win. But Allen says he and his players are embracing the challenge of going up against the nation’s third-ranked team. “There's nothing like being tested by the best. Those that are elite competitors, they thrive in that. They want that,” Allen said this week. “Even though it isn't the easiest way to start something out, I think it also can be the best way for you to become who I believe you can become.”Camper was Indiana’s leading receiver in 2022 despite playing in only seven games. He caught 46 passes for 569 yards and two touchdowns, including seven catches of 20 yards or more, before his season ended early with a torn ACL. That meant the Buckeyes didn’t have to face Camper last November, but he’ll present a bigger test than any of the receivers Ohio State had to face in that 56-14 win. Allen said Camper could be on a “pitch count” in the season opener because he’s coming off an injury, but said Camper “should be full bore” when he’s on the field. That makes No. 6 a player Ohio State’s secondary will need to have circled on the scouting report, though Ohio State safety Lathan Ransom said the Buckeyes aren’t zeroing in on one Hoosier receiver specifically. “They got a lot of dynamic players all over the field. And then also, they get the ball out really fast,” Ransom said. “So it’s something that we've been aware of and we're really excited for the challenge.”Speaking of dynamic players, Indiana may have the most dangerous kickoff returner in the country. Lucas was the only player in the FBS to return two kickoffs for touchdowns in 2022, earning him first-team All-American honors., he was clocked at 4.29 seconds in the 40-yard dash this offseason.
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