Stroud's the unquestioned leader of this team going forward.
I agree, and I think his play on the field absolutely carried the team this year.
Some fans wanted CJ benched after a few overthrows against Tulsa on a bad shoulder ... but has any of our backups look good or even consistent against any opponent not named Akron?
Football is a game of staying on schedule until opportunities for explosives arise. Against the toughest opponents, coaches need a handful of players & plays they can trust to stay on schedule. For Urban, it was JT & the QB runs. In '19 & '20, it was the ground game with Dobbins & Sermon respectively, even when we have a generational QB in Fields. In '21, it has been Stroud & the quick/intermediate passing game.
Coach Day's trust in Stroud shows up in stats; tOSU's toughest games were generally games CJ threw the most (though part of it was tOSU being down in the Ls):
- 54 against Oregon
- 34 against PSU (Day did try to establish the run more in this game, but I remember Henderson was stuffed a ton on goal-line & short yardage runs)
- 54 against Nebraska
- 49 against TTUN
In fact, I think this year Stroud-to-JSN
is the "ground game", with tOSU being 11 personnel much more often than 12 (replacing 2nd TE with slot WR); I remember seeing Stroud-to-JSN time after time in short yardage and/or late down situations. The literal ground game OTOH has been too boom-or-bust to be relied upon for staying on schedule. Henderson averages 7 ypc, but it is more 9 stuffed runs & a 70 yarder, than consistent 7 yard gains.
@RossRFulton on
buckeyescoop talks a lot about Coach Day relying on horizontal & RPO throws to protect numbers in the run game. While it has been fun to read about what makes tOSU's offense tick, have we truly taken a step back to think about what this means? Coach is asking a 1st year QB who hasn't thrown a pass in '20 to "protect" tOSU's run game, instead of the other way around.