Kyle McCord's final pass as an Ohio State Buckeye was caught by a Michigan Wolverine.
It was his 406th and final passing attempt for his now-former team. A little over a week later
McCord abruptly entered the transfer portal, converting that interception into the cruel exclamation point a three-year journey toward becoming the first starting Ohio State quarterback in a dozen years who didn't scare anyone.
Nothing, including rivalry dominance, lasts forever - so the streak of Heisman candidates/offensive players of the year/Silver Football winners under center was bound to end. McCord - let's type this into existence - becomes what should be a blip in a decades-long progression of 1st round picks coming out of Columbus.
Being a
serviceable quarterback in what's become a QB factory is a crime McCord could commit on nearly any other campus without absorbing charges. Statistically
he was 1998 Joe Germaine, which in the contextual scheme of college football made him 25 years too late. College football was a whole different sport in its first millennium.
MCCORD'S NEXT COLLEGE PASS WILL BE INTENDED FOR A SYRACUSE TEAMMATE WHO WOULD NOT BE A CANDIDATE FOR OHIO STATE'S 85-MAN ROSTER.
McCord lost his place in the Ryan Day QB lineage in the margins, which is unfortunately how Day’s teams tend to lose their biggest football trials. His first throw against Michigan was an exceptionally-schemed 3rd down play designed to gut the Wolverines.
And it nearly did, except McCord's ball placement was low and behind Emeka Egbuka, who was unable to corral it in the seam. Maybe if Egbuka hadn't missed time nursing injuries he would have still had the rhythm and connectivity with his quarterback that was on display at Notre Dame. Perhaps the whole game looks different if that one forgotten sequence - it doesn't show up in any of the highlight packages - goes McCord's way.
Unfortunately, he was three years into the system and 11 games into the season. An Ohio State quarterback
has to make that throw, and if we learned anything about McCord in 2023 it's that he often needs a half of missing those throws to start making them.
1997: An even worse GIF than the one above.
His second pass was a checkdown to TreVeyon Henderson and his third was a screen to Xavier Johnson. McCord's head coach, position coach and play caller (these are all the same person, which is an entirely different issue) knew their third-year five-star QB needs safe completions to accelerate his slow starts and shaky confidence.
McCord's fourth pass is what you quickly scrolled past to reach these words. A tepid attempt - that’s being nice, it was negligent - at selling an RPO while laser-locked onto his high school teammate before throwing the most interceptable ball seen in this game since the two Stanley Jackson gift-wrapped while ceding the margin of victory, the Heisman and the Rose Bowl to Michigan with Germaine stuck on Ohio State's sideline.
McCord threw a ball that could not be thrown under any circumstance, especially after telegraphing his intentions to 110,615 people and both teams. Sure, Marv could have made more of an attempt to put some concealer on McCord's latest blemish. His position group was leaned on all year for this task, especially over the first 30 minutes each Saturday.
Ohio State completed the first decade of the CFP era with five playoff appearances and five consolation prizes. The next decade won't be so balanced.
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