Golferdow01
East-Coast Living
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I mentioned in a recent “Bucket of Bullets” column that there would ultimately be 31 players from the 2002 national championship Buckeye team that will be drafted by teams in the NFL. An even more remarkable feat was that 26 faithful readers rang me up (justifiably) that I forgot about the most important player on that team. Craig Krenzel.
They were right. Mea culpa.
He was often overlooked for his heroic services at the time but – in retrospect – Craig might have been the heart and soul of the team in the same way that Rex Kern was a generation before him. Even more than his field presence, Krenzel represented the type of team player that Coach Tressel was seeking: Craig was simply 1/11th of the offense and he was expected to do his job without mistakes. He was also expected to contribute a highlight reel play every now and again.
What does all this blathering have to do with a recruiting column? Well, it got me thinking. And then it was all downhill from there.
Krenzel was the “prototype” QB that Jim Tressel wanted running his offense. He was big (6’4” and 225). He was smart (majoring in Molecular Genetics). He had a great high school background in the position of quarterbacking. And he was backed up by a guy, Scott McMullen, with similar attributes (and 6’3” and 215). If Krenzel (or McMullen) needed to gain a couple yards rushing, they were capable. But they weren’t really running QB’s. They were good athletes but not to be confused with a Michael Vick or even a Vince Young (ouch…).
And that’s the type of quarterback Coach T has been recruiting. Only they got bigger and more athletic and headier and had bigger arms. Just check out the progression:
1. Justin Zwick: As to size, he is 6’4”and 225. He is a good athlete with an adequate arm and can run for a first down if pressed. He also runs the Buckeyes’ vaunted quarterback sneak with the best of them! As to “heady”, Justin won a state championship in the last seconds – when he was 15 years old. He has played at the highest levels of quarterbacking for a long time, now.
2. Todd Boeckman: As to size, Todd is a big’n at 6’5” and 235. And as to athleticism, this is a kid who was All-State in basketball and baseball, too. He started at quarterback for St. Henry since he was a freshman (might have been his best year, statistically…) and his father was the coach, so all he knows is a steady diet of QB aphorisms.
3. Joe Bauserman: If you want to talk athleticism, here’s a guy playing professional baseball right now and throwing 90+ MPH heat. Yes, a good arm. Size-wise, Bauserman is 6’2’ and 215. He was renown in Florida for leading his Tallahassee Lincoln team back from precarious situation and triumphing. Despite the average looking stats, he has/had all the “intangibles”.
4. Rob Schoenhoft: The big just keep getting bigger. Rob told me that he expected to play at OSU at 6’6” and 240 pounds. Arm strength? His coach told us that half of Rob’s incompletions were spot-perfect passes that his receivers just couldn’t hold. Athlete? Heady? Rob got his St. Xavier basketball team into the high school final four with last-minute hoops in two different games.
Then look at the quarterback prospects, the kids OSU recruited in the last few campaigns; kids that decided to go elsewhere. They include Mark Sanchez last year, probably the best QB in the land. He was a drop back athletic guy. They also looked at a similar lesser light in Gene Delle Donne. The year before? Xavier Lee and Anthony Morelli were the big names before OSU settled on Bauserman.
At this point in the thesis, you might be asking: is there a pony in the pile of horse manure somewhere? Is there a point? Yes. And here it is. Mr. Bucknuts believes that the “Troy Smith Experiment” has changed the way that the Tressel Team looks at the QB position for the Buckeyes. The fact that a Troy Smith-type quarterback brings such a powerful dimension to the offense, and a dimension that becomes so much harder to defense, spreads out the field and spreads out the possibilities.
Troy was a throw-in, to be blunt, in his recruiting class with those people “in the know” saying he would be switched to wide receiver while Ted Ginn (his coach) told us he would be the future Buckeye quarterback. He wasn’t the size we expected. He wasn’t the stereotypical drop-back QB. He was shake and bake. He had little experience at the position. And – hey – they have another Glenville product this year that might be a bigger version (Arvell Nelson)! But I digress…
With Todd Boeckman the mostly likely heir to the throne, then how do the possibilities line up if you are projecting the future of the quarterback position?
Well, next season (2006) Smith and Zwick will be seniors in eligibility and Boeckman will be a sophomore. Schoenhoft will be a red-shirt freshman. If the Buckeyes recruit one/two newbies, he/they will be true freshmen and will be red-shirting that year. That means that for the 2007 campaign (if the world is linear and the creek don’t rise…), Boeckman would take over as a junior (with four years of “seasoning”!), Schoenhoft would be the back-up as a sophomore and the newbies would be red-shirt frosh.
That also means that there would be as many as six quarterbacks on the team in 2006. Quite a change from having Ted Ginn step in to take snaps – in a bowl game – because OSU didn’t have a back-up they could put in!
It also means that the QB (or two) that the Buckeyes select this year will probably tell us the future of the OSU offensive machinery. Do they go back to the days of the big athletic drop-back quarterback who isn’t supposed to make mistakes? Do they go into an era of shake-and-bake shuck-and-jive QB athletes that drive defenses nuts and – maybe – drive their own coaches a little batty at the same time?
