That sound you heard was Urban Meyer dialing up his local pizza parlor to drown his sorrows in a sad pie after learning that senior quarterback Braxton Miller re-injured his shoulder at practice on Monday.
The Columbus Dispatch reports that Miller’s injury could keep him from playing this season. Miller was expected to be a Heisman Trophy contender and have the Buckeyes in the top 10 nationally, but it looks like his shoulder is in bad shape.
Miller injured his shoulder in Ohio State’s Orange Bowl loss to Clemson and had surgery on it in February. He had been slow to recover from the surgery and missed some of the fall camp.
If Miller is out for the season as early reports suggest, that means Ohio State will likely turn to redshirt freshman J.T. Barrett at QB.
Barrett joined the Buckeyes in January, 2013 and redshirted last year. He split time with Cardale Jones in the spring while Miller recovered from surgery.
Meyer said over the weekend that Barrett had jumped Jones for the backup quarterback spot, while offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Tom Herman praised Barrett’s ability to move the offense.
“The offense moves better when he’s in there,” Herman said of Barrett Saturday via Cleveland.com. “You can throw all the completion percentages – he’s probably completing more balls and making more of the right reads in the run game.
“But at the end of the day, the offense moves when he’s in and sometimes it doesn’t as much, not that Cardale is doing a bad job, but the offense moves more frequently when J.T. is the quarterback, and that’s the sign of a good one.”
Barrett comes from Wichita Falls, Texas, and spent parts of last year recovering from reconstructive knee surgery. A four-star, dual-threat QB, Barrett tore up his knee during the fifth game of his senior season in high school. Ohio State stood by their offer to him and it looks like that is paying off. I bet the Buckeyes will still have a good season even if Miller is out for the year.
Photo: Twitter/_laake5
