Second only to the punter, the QB is the most important single position on the field in football.  Experience is just as important as ability in this position.  Ohio State returns QB Todd Boeckman, a 24 year old 6’5 244 lb Gray shirt/Red Shirt Senior out of St. Henry, Ohio. 

Boeckman owes this, his final year, to Justin Zwick, who, after badly pulling a hamstring in the Alamo Bowl in 2005 hobbled back on the field for three quarters in order to keep Boeckman from burning his redshirt for that year (Troy Smith having been suspended for two games).  Justin, this season is for you.

Boeckman has great vision and always sees the open guy.  He is a very accurate passer and is thought of as a drop back QB.  What most people don’t know about him is he is pretty fleet of foot, and when he takes off running, he can get yards up the field.  At just shy of 250 pounds, he can run some people over and get an extra few yards falling forward.  There is no doubting his arm strength, though he rarely puts too much zip on the ball.

Boeckman had a pretty good year numbers-wise last year, but the wheels came off for him in the last three games.  Boeckman’s problem has been interceptions on deep balls.  There is no doubting his arm strength to get the ball to a receiver who has broken free.  It happened time and time again last year, and guys like Brian Robiskie and Ray Small got a great many long balls for touchdowns in some big games on national television.  The trouble came later when it seemed that Boeckman was forcing these long balls.  Defensive Backs were sitting there waiting for the ball to come down and gobbling them up when they did.

Here is all there is to Boeckman.  His judgment has to improve.  He has all the tools.  Size, speed, arm strength and accuracy.  But his judgment has to improve.  We can’t take any more games where he spots the other team three interceptions.  No defense is that good, and we can’t score when the other team has the ball (unless your name is James Laurinaitis).  If he improves his judgment, some NFL team is going to get a really good QB in 2009, and we will be playing for the National Championship for three years in a row.  If he doesn’t, we still might play for the National Championship, but we may start to look more like the Buffalo Bills than the New England Patriots.

One thing I would like to see out of Boeckman is tucking the ball and running upfield with it more when the long ball isn’t there.  I sat next to Howard Hopalong Cassidy back in 2002 for the game against Texas Tech.  He told me that a scrambling QB wears out Defensive linemen like nothing else.  Those yards are there, Todd.  Take them and let Chris Wells run against a tired defense in the third quarter.

Backing up Boeckman will be Joe Bauserman.  Bauserman is an interesting story.  Highly recruited as a drop back passing QB out of Florida in 2005, he opted to sign a contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates and spent three years making bank on their minor league team.  But when pro baseball didn’t pan out, he went back to OSU and asked them for a tryout.  He did not have to ask them for a scholarship, since his contract with the Pirates obligates the Pirates to pay for his education.  Bauserman is a 6’2 220 lb. Sophomore.  Is there a better position to be in than an OSU QB with a few hundred thousand in the bank?

All the talk this year though is about incoming true Freshman Terrelle Pryor.  OSU has its share of fans who don’t know much about football who are saying that he will beat Todd Boeckman out of the starting position.  These people don’t know football, and they don’t know Jim Tressel. 

Pryor is perhaps the most recruited player ever.  OSU won the Pryor sweepstakes and at 6’6 225, he is big and fast.  Watching him run in high school clips reminds me of O.J. Simpson, Robert Smith, and/or Tedd Ginn.  He has those same long strides and he seems like he is  moving along at three quarters speed.  But he is covering so much ground that he is just pulling away from everyone. 

Most of his highlights have shown him running to the outside and making a lot of yards.  But in college football, nobody runs to the outside because the defenses are too fast from top to bottom.  But you can’t blame a guy for picking the fruit on the lowest branches if it is there.  There were a few highlights of him going up the middle though.  That is where the true yards are in college football.

The other thing about Pryor that has resulted in some negative comment is that he has a slightly side-armed throwing style.  A low release means that tall Defensive Linemen who get their arms up during a pass rush can bat the ball down.  At 6’6 one can almost get away with that, but in the long run, a more upright technique is best. 

Most commentators who saw Pryor throwing the ball on the first day of practice this year remarked that the side-arm style was gone.  Clearly he has been working with someone on his technique.  It is a good sign when someone who has doubtless had everyone telling him he is the greatest thing ever for so long turns out for practice with a clear technical improvement to his game. 

If he keeps his head down and listens to Joe Daniels, he won’t be the next Heisman winner at OSU (that will be Chris Wells).  But he may be the next QB who will win the Heisman. 

The big loss at QB came when second stringer Antonio Henton transferred to Georgia Southern.  Henton figured that with Pryor coming in, he would get beat out of the number two spot, and then when Boeckman graduated, end up number two backing up Pryor.  But that wasn’t necessarily true.  Henton was making some really great progress last year until his legal problems, which are now behind him.  He was really accurate on crossing patterns and while not as fleet of foot as Henton, he could run the ball up the field.  The loss of Henton leaves us thin at the QB position, unless Joe Bauserman really steps up.

No contemplation of the QB position at OSU would be complete without a bit on how Pryor will be used this year.  Pryor is too good to keep on the sideline.  There are those who think he could be an effective decoy on certain plays.  There are those who think he should get an entire series here and there wherein he will reveal himself as a game breaker. 

I’d like to see him line up in the backfield as a half back on a misdirection play where the line heads left and he heads right with Boeckman pitching him the ball.  If the yards on the naked bootleg are there, then take them and get out of bounds.  But if the defense looks to contain him on the corner, a short pass to Tight End Jake Ballard or Rory Nicol for the first down is just the thing.  I guarantee that the TE will be in single coverage in that situation. 

Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?  Bueller?  Frye?

So much depends upon Pryor’s maturity and his character.  If he works hard in practice, he will get reps with the Twos (the second team) and even may get some reps with the Ones.  Tressel’s starters in games are the guys who are getting reps with the Ones in practice.  But if he dogs it, thinking he is a superstar and doesn’t need to improve, then he will be running the scout team and will end up a bust. 

So far, that does not look likely.  He seems to have his head on his shoulders.  You don’t read about any off the field issues about the guy in high school.  He has clearly worked on his fundamentals over the summer.  Lastly, he realizes that he is not ready to start as a QB in college football.  If he thought he was ready to start, he would have gone to Michigan where that position is open for the taking.  But instead, he decided that he would be better off learning the Tressel system while holding a clipboard and signalling in plays.  That takes a lot of maturity.

My advice to Pryor:  Read Tressel’s Winners’ Manual and take everything in it to heart. 

You Should Also Check Out This Post:

More Active Posts: