Ohio State Buckeyes quarterback C.J. Stroud will be used only in an emergency capacity on Saturday against Akron, coach Ryan Day announced on his weekly radio show on 97.1 FM The Fan.
Stroud, according to Day, is nursing a shoulder injury, and the staff felt a week of rest would do the redshirt freshman some good as the Big Ten conference schedule approaches.
“We’ll see how he’s feeling right now, see how he’s feeling today coming in, but there was still kind of this feeling that he had that he really couldn’t shake, and so maybe rest is something that would go a long way for him,” Day said. “And then allow some of these other guys to practice and move forward here. But, yeah, we’ll see, we’ll see how he’s doing, see how he’s feeling, and obviously his feedback is important.
“If he’s ready to roll, let’s go. But I think rest here is probably going to be the best option over the weekend.”
True freshman Quinn Ewers will not be available to play, so Jack Miller and Kyle McCord will get playing time in place of Stroud. Day has yet to name a starter between the two, but both have been preparing as though they will play.
“These guys have both got reps, both get reps with the ones. We split them pretty good across the board during the week, and they both picked up the game plan,” Day said. “They both, I think, feel pretty good going into a Thursday practice; still have a lot more preparation go here as we get to Saturday night. But we’ll see how today goes, and we’ll just keep looking at it. The good thing is, I think, that we have some guys who are excited about getting some reps under their belt, and I think that’s exciting for our entire team to see those guys play.”
Day said part of the plan will be to name one starter rather than a rotation of the two quarterbacks. He anticipates naming that starter Friday after watching practice Thursday and putting together a plan of how they see the game playing out.
Neither Miller nor McCord has completed a pass in college, but Miller participated in a game last season when he scored on a 21-yard run against Nebraska. Despite that lack of experience, Day believes both quarterbacks are prepared and says that the staff was prepared for this moment going into the season based on the team’s experience in the past.
“We knew going into the season that we’re going to need the whole room, we talked about that coming in, that this was just going to probably be one guy, that we’re going to need everybody,” Day said. “We certainly know the story on that in 2014, we needed JT [Barrett], Cardale [Jones] and Braxton [Miller]. This year maybe is similar to that way, I don’t know, we’ll see. But, this is a great opportunity to possibly get these guys some reps, and it looks like maybe the opportunity is going to present itself here.”