It’s hard to say exactly how it will all shake out at this point, nor even at points distant in the future.  Pryor won’t be in Spring Practice since he elected not to graduate early but rather to stay with his basketball team to win the Pennsylvania State AA Championship. 

But we can deduce certain things from what we know of the situation and from what we know of Tressel.

First, we know that Pryor will miss all spring practices and the Spring Game.  The reality of Jim Tressel is that if you don’t do well in Spring Practice and in the Spring Game, you will not be starting at OSU.  Period.

Second, we know that Jim Tressel values experience (if there is a lot of it) at the position over ability when it comes to starters.  That means that Pryor will not be starting at QB this season, nor will he even be the second string guy (Antonio Hinton has too much experience and ability to be displaced).

But this will not stop Tressel from making use of Terrelle Pryor this season, and here is how (and why)  I think it will be done.

Why: 

A.  Tressel is a traditionalist when it comes to football.   He isn’t going to be much interested in a two QB system (the old saying is that if you have two QBs as starters then you don’t have one).  But with the recent success of Leak/Tebow and Flynn/Perriloux, that creates a tradition of its own.

Thus it is likely that we will see Pryor sent in the game in Tebow like situations.  These include spots near the opponent’s goal line and on some third and short situations.

B.  The threat of a player’s use can hurt an opponent.  There is only a certain amount of time during the six days you have to practice and prepare to play your next opponent.  If you know that Tressel won’t be using Pryor, then your job preparing to play OSU just got a bit easier.  Tressel doesn’t like to make it easy for opponents.

How: 

A.  Most people, when creating something new, will start off with a template from something old.  Thus Tressel may start with some of the old “Shot Ginn” formations he used back in the OSU v. OSU Alamo Bowl when Justin Zwick pulled a hamstring, Troy Smith was home suspended, and no one wanted to burn Todd Boeckman’s redshirt.

B.  Deception.  Tressel is also a pretty cagey guy.  I think that the first few times Pryor goes in to any game, you will get from him just what you suspect, a bunch of running and scrambling around which might get us some yards and might not.  But it will be the fourth or fifth time, after the opposing defense starts to think that whenever Pryor comes in it will be a run and scramble sort of play that will be key.

At that point, Tressel may just have Pryor drop back and throw the ball to a tight end or to a receiver on a crossing route.  Or better yet, if the defense has substituted in a bunch of guys and put them in position to stop what they think will be a run around the end, hand the ball off to Chris Wells to run up the middle behind a fullback.

None of this is very exciting, but plays in football work because of mismatches.  Use of Pryor as a decoy to get the mismatches you want isn’t sexy, but it will work.  At that point the play will depend upon execution.

Further, Pryor is going to have to develop as a drop back passer if he is going to succeed in the NFL.

So my prediction is that Pryor will be used to help the team quite a bit this coming year, but the use may not always be obvious.

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