OHIO STATE

Barrett lends veteran hand to young Bucks

Jon Spencer
Reporter

COLUMBUS – Easily attracting the biggest crowd during Ohio State’s Media Day, J.T. Barrett proved as adept at completing someone else’s sentence as he has looked completing passes and drives as the Buckeyes’ dual-threat quarterback.

Reporter: “You’ve been through ...”

Barrett: “... a lot.”

For someone who has rewritten the OSU record book, ranked among the leaders in Heisman Trophy voting and played a major role in the Buckeyes’ 2014 national championship season, Barrett’s college career has been a soap opera played out in front of one of the largest fan bases in America.

He went from winning a starting job in 2014 because of an injury to losing the job because of injury, to failing in 2015 to win back the starting job in an open competition, to regaining the job before losing it again because of a drunk-driving arrest, to getting it back in time to share the blame for last year’s only loss, to looking like his old self in resounding back-to-back wins over the two winningest programs in history.

Got all that?

Last year had to be one of the most trying seasons of Barrett’s life, and remember, the Buckeyes finished 12-1.

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“The things that happen in your past, good and bad, make you who you are,” he said. “I’m not going to shy away from those things. They make me who I am today. I like who I am. I think I’m a better person for it. I’ve grown as a person and I think it’s also made me a better football player.”

“Better” is good for a team with the smallest amount of returning experience in the 128-school Football Bowl Subdivision. Barrett is one of only three starters back on offense, matching the total of returning starters on defense. Gone are 16 starters, 12 of them being taken in the first four rounds of the NFL draft.

How quickly Barrett elevates the level of play around him will determine if the Buckeyes have what it takes to again contend for a playoff berth.

“The talent’s still there, but the experience is lacking,” Barrett said. “And without experience, confidence might be lacking. Knowing (the unproven players) can make a play on Saturday is something that needs to be developed.”

Barrett and tailback Ezekiel Elliott meshed well in OSU’s read-option attack the past two seasons, but Elliott left early for the NFL, meaning that Barrett needs to start over and develop chemistry with redshirt freshman running back Mike Weber

Compared to what Barrett’s been through, that should be a snap.

He hadn’t taken a meaningful snap in nearly two years when he was thrust into a starting role at the outset of the 2014 season because of a shoulder injury to incumbent Braxton Miller.

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Barrett went on to set 19 school or Big Ten records that season as a redshirt freshman, only to break his ankle in the regular season finale against Michigan.

Backup Cardale Jones took over, preserved the lead against Michigan, and then led the Buckeyes to post-season victories over Big Ten Championship Game opponent Wisconsin, Alabama and Oregon — the latter two in the semis and finals of the inaugural College Football Playoff.

Barrett finished fifth in the 2014 Heisman balloting, but didn’t do enough in the offseason to win back the job until third down and red zone deficiencies prompted Meyer to switch from Jones to Barrett midway through the 2015 season.

After just one game back in the saddle, the Texas native was arrested for drunk driving during a bye week and slapped with a one-game suspension. He returned to the lineup in time to be a non-factor in the inexplicable loss at home to short-handed Michigan State — a loss that would cost OSU a chance to repeat as Big Ten and national champion.

On the plus side, Barrett and the Buckeyes rebounded to finish strong, cruising to a 42-13 victory over Michigan and dumping Notre Dame 44-28 in the Fiesta Bowl.

Bouncing back from that devastating loss spoke volumes about Ohio State and its resilient quarterback. Unfortunately, thoughts of that Michigan State debacle linger. It was not Urban Meyer’s finest hour as a strategist, nor was it a good performance by Barrett, whose coaches tied his hands by practically reducing Elliott to a spectator.

“J.T.’s been through a lot of adversity, and that’s when you see a person’s true colors,” said center Pat Elflein, a tri-captain with Barrett and middle linebacker Raekwon McMillan. “He handled it better than anybody I know. I love J.T. I’m always learning from him. He leads by example and people want to be around him.”

Had Barrett started from Day 1 last season, maybe he’s in such good rhythm that the Buckeyes prevail over Michigan State and finish the regular season unbeaten. But Meyer said Barrett didn’t “take the job” from Jones in training camp.

“Your program falls apart if you start appointing people who didn’t earn it. It was very close,” Meyer said. “J.T. just wasn’t playing at the level we wanted him to play at. But it was hard because he wasn’t getting all the reps. There’s a lot of reasons (he didn’t win the job), but I don’t want to keep going backward.”

Barrett said he did too much thinking last year instead of relying on his instincts.

“I remember in 2014, coach (Tom) Herman (OSU’s former quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator) telling me to stop thinking and just relax,” Barrett said. “It’s almost like thinking slowed me down. I like to play fast. I guess I was trying to break down every situation and I hindered myself.”

He offered some examples.

“We’re playing Michigan State in 2014,” he said. “We run a quarterback counter to the left. Zeke (Elliott) chops a guy and I’m running down the sideline and I’m thinking, should I step out of bounds? I’m like, well, we’re up, we want the clock to run, so I stayed in bounds.

“A bad example (of thinking too much) is I’m at the line of scrimmage thinking, Ah, they could do this, or the defense could do that, but if they do this, I need to do that. I’ve got like two seconds left on the play clock. That’s the difference between good thinking and bad thinking. I was definitely doing some bad thinking last year.”

Barrett said he was trying to do right by the position and was aware, maybe to a fault, of the responsibility that comes with being the quarterback at Ohio State. His leadership will never be more important than this season, with returning starters in short supply.

“I don’t really have a lot of regrets,” he said. “Things you have gone through make you who you are. I believe in God and God puts us in certain things to be sturdy in our faith. I’m trying to use those experiences to help myself, but also some of the young guys, so they won’t have to go through what I had to. Why would you go through some of the bad things and not try to help someone else?

“I remember in 2014 there were times when my heartbeat would spike up, I guess because I was a young guy and wanted to do so well. I remember it would be third down, and I’m like, holy crap, this is where quarterbacks make their money. So I’ve got to play well. Now that I’m more relaxed, that’s something that’s going to be valuable to the team.”