Stephen Means, Stefan Krajisnik and Andrew Gillis discuss Ohio State football's quarterbacks and running backs.
Listen to Buckeye Talk, your favorite Ohio State football podcast, five days a week with Stephen Means, Stefan Krajisnik and Andrew Gillis.For the quarterbacks, it was a chance to not talk about the looming battle since no one seems to be focused on that element of this offseason. Instead, it turned into conversations about replacing Will Howard’s best skill as QB1 in 2024.
It comes with the position. comes with the title of being QB one, right? Like I think we would even, all of us would probably say that Devin Brown was a decent leader on this team last season and he was QB two. Like that, that’s a trait that just kind of comes with the quarterback position, but maybe Will Howard had that trait in a way that surprised overwhelmed, whatever the adjective you want to use in describing it is.
And if leadership is such a big thing for this coaching staff, when it comes to that position, what they do off the field might be just as important as what they do on the field for at least for the next several weeks. And that’s maybe an area where someone can separate themselves a bit. So maybe the, the QB competition is, is more about that because that’s all you’re going to really get from the spring.don’t know how to talk about the quarterback value, Andrew. Because.
talent conversation. This isn’t a tangible conversation. This is an intangible conversation. How does a quarterback room full of guys who don’t seem like they’re the most vocal people by nature go about winning a job that requires you to be the up most vocal, the utmost seen in the most heard and utmost felt person in the program?Well, I think the number one thing is authenticity.
You know, yeah, those things are, you know, the true about the, you know, working hard and like that, that should be a given, but you need players that are, are quarterbacks that are in this room that are going to lead in true characteristics to their personality. Like, well, like, don’t think anybody looked at Will Howard throughout the year and went, Oh, this is fake. Oh, this isn’t who he is. Oh, this isn’t, you know, what Will Howard’s all about.
For again, for whatever winning the press conference means, I thought Taveon for his introduction to the Ohio State beat as a now official Ohio State football player handled it well. Yes or no? Very quick answer. Do you agree?Now, here’s the reason why he handled it so well. Because he knows everybody. Yeah, he knows everybody. Literally. And it plays into what maybe might be his advantage to whatever it means. And Billy Fester shot down a lot of it.
and was done. And Ohio State had Dylan Raola. And then in December, Dylan Raola, I’m saying like literally 48 hours after Jeremiah Smith committed. I’m so serious. 48 hours after Jeremiah Smith committed, Dylan Raola said, nah, I’m good. Six months after he committed. So now Ohio State’s back on the market for a quarterback. The first call they made, well, one of the first calls they made was Julian Sand, and they offered him.
says that he’s far and away the best quarterback in the room. Like what is that? That’s not particularly like leadership skill, but then, but then in October when you win the starting job and people are, you know, maybe criticizing you and whatever may happen, like he has full ready to go up there be like, I’m the best quarterback in the country. Like what are you all talking about? Like then you can do that because then you’ve got nothing to lose and then you can start campaigning for yourself.
This guy’s from Southern California and he was coming to the Bama. Will Howard is six foot five, 235 plus pounds and can run. Julian San is six foot one ish and 204 pounds ish. Will Howard was comfortable in every aspect there is to be a leader. When on Monday, Ryan Day’s talking about you gotta be the hardest worker first in the building, last out the door, all that stuff. Of course they were gonna come out on Wednesday and be motivated. But what happens in practice 11? What happens in June? What happens in the dog days of August? Julian Sand has to learn how to do the things Will Howard was elite at. And so does Lincoln Kinnos and so does David and St. Clair. So I’m not discounting them.
And then Carlos Loughlin today said he’s at 226. So that’s pretty significant. showed, you know, 243 to 226 at that position is a really interesting kind of physical change, I guess you could say. So you kind of, I think, have this anticipation of like, this is what this guy is going to be. But I think today definitely kind of gave you the idea and the mentality of like, this is not a one trick pony. This is somebody who who’s probably going to be able to do a bunch of different things. And I think Ohio State has its one to punch. And now it’s just finding out, OK, what does CJ do differently that made Carlos Loughlin want to go get him? And we’re going to find that out maybe in fall camp, maybe in the spring.
There is going to be room for a third guy to emerge. And maybe that third guy is more situational, right? Like maybe CJ and James, they control the workload and the third guy is kind of what they use situation. Cause James, even last year, wasn’t even like situational. was, I he was a mop up duty guy, guess, like is basically what his role was. Like, I don’t think that’s what that is.
And then the running back, McIntosh had 43. he, McIntosh got the ball a lot. It just wasn’t all in the run game. was in the passing game as well. So, I mean, this is the problem you have too many good players. That’s what I’ll say this year. They have too many good skill pairs, but I’m just the running stats alone. The fact that you had four guys essentially have 70 plus carries in a 15 game season where you won a national championship.
I can understand why he felt like last year was rough for him and it maybe got contentious at times, but they, as he said, they had to sit down and have some man to man conversations and they’re in a much better place here. So it seems like he’s a little bit more locked into being here. Cause I do agree with that. Ryan day says it’s a lot. have to choose to be here. Cause this is a lot. Ohio state. There are a lot of us there.
My lasting impressions of Devin Sanchez were like, this is not made up. This is not, wow, maybe this kid needs some time. Yeah, he might just be the most talented, second most talented, third most talented corner on this team right now, but him being a starter very soon is not unreasonable in the slightest.I, well, if I could say one more thing about it, we were standing in the Woody and they were like stretching and like, you know, there wasn’t a lot going on.
We had not seen the version of Devin Sanchez that was the number one player in the number one corner back in the 2025 recruiting class. We had seen Devin Sanchez, a teenager taking visits to Ohio State. Andrew, know you, I don’t know if you were on the beat yet when he did the camp. You might not have been. No, but we had seen Devin Sanchez, a teenager.And for two practices, we’ve just seen Devon says as a football player. It was the same thing with Jeremiah Smith.
Even if it’s a lot of walkthroughs and installs, he seems to be very quickly picking up on things and so that helps. I agree with you. And so I brought it to somebody today on Wednesday that I agreed with you so much. And I literally brought up that idea of that. And they said, I don’t hate it. I don’t like there’s a lot of ways that you can do this and I’m just I’m interested to see how they play it out.Stefan, let me ask you, would you say CJ Hicks' stock is significantly high right now? what would you, one through 10, 10 being the highest it could possibly be, one being it does not exist, where would you put CJ Hicks' stock?I think it’s like out of five.
It’s pretty big for a 6-3 guy who is essentially in the mold that I think we’re all thinking about with CJ Hicks, right? If we’re talking CJ Hicks to defensive end, we’re talking guys like Abdul Carter, Michael Parsons, Von Miller. And I understand those are the best of the best in that group, but we’re using them as examples because that’s who most people know.
I think Matt Patricia was the best thing that’s happened to CJ Hicks his career here. Now he’s got to go out there and take full advantage of it. Right? This is, this is all hypothetical and in theory and which is what he is still four years and he’s still a theory, which is why Stefan you put him out of five because there are some people who are still bought into that theory and there are some people who are ready to move on to new theories.
what he can do because he started his career as a linebacker and has been a linebacker most of his career. Like he is, he is versatile and he has a defensive end and I’m with you, Steven. I think he’s going to have a great year. Also, it was hilarious. He was, he sat through about basically the whole Julian, Julian St. Press conference. And I heard him like say at one point he was like, I’m just kind of interested. I think he just wanted to know like what, Julian had to say.
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