COLUMBUS, Ohio — It may have taken six games to do so, but Urban Meyer finally appeared to find an answer for Ohio State's quarterback conundrum in the Buckeyes' 49-28 win over Maryland on Saturday.
And it doesn't involve choosing one guy over the other.
After stating earlier in the week that he had spent an "inordinate" amount of time debating situationally subbing backup J.T. Barrett for starter Cardale Jones to help cure the Buckeyes' recent red-zone woes, Meyer wasted little time putting words into action. Upon reaching the Terrapins' 25-yard line on Ohio State's second offensive drive, the Buckeyes head coach pulled Jones in favor of Barrett, who found wide receiver Michael Thomas for a 20-yard pass before capping off the drive with a three-yard touchdown run.
Barrett ultimately accounted for 88 yards and three touchdowns on the day, but Meyer's decision to sprinkle him into the game plan didn't only seem to benefit the reigning Big Ten Quarterback of the Year. Jones responded to his reduction in playing time with the best statistical day of his career, completing 21 of his 28 attempts for a career best 291 yards and two touchdowns—and perhaps most importantly, no interceptions.
After five weeks of uncertainty—which included a couple of in-game benchings of Jones—Meyer appears to have settled on a system that will involve both of his high-profile quarterbacks, even if he's not willing to call it a final solution just yet.
"Sure. Until next week," Meyer answered with a smile when asked if Jones and Barrett will each continue to play for the remainder of the season. "The attention to this thing, I'm exhausted from it."
It wasn't quite the Chris Leak-Tim Tebow combination that Meyer used during his 2006 national championship season at Florida, but the Buckeyes' version of a two-QB system still managed to highlight both Jones and Barrett in different capacities. While Jones connected downfield with touchdown tosses of 19 and 48 yards, Barrett cleaned up inside the red zone, rushing for three touchdowns on the day.
After entering the weekend with the nation's 108th-ranked red-zone offense, Ohio State converted each of its six opportunities inside of Maryland's 20-yard line—all six scores coming by way of touchdown.
That was perhaps the biggest factor that went into Meyer's decision to give increased playing time to Barrett, who offers more dual-threat ability than the 6'5", 250-pound Jones.
"We've been having some red zone issues and the [QB] run—everything condenses so much in there. Either you have to be extremely accurate, which we're going to continue to work at that in the throwing game—or the run game, you have to somehow find an extra hat. That's only done a couple of ways, that's option football or Q run to equate numbers," Meyer said. "[Barrett] provided an obvious spark for us in there."
Jones, for his part, said he didn't have an issue with the quarterback playing time being divided, even though both he and Barrett said in the preseason that they had concerns with a potential two-quarterback system messing with their respective rhythms. That didn't seem to be the case on Saturday, however, as both players contributed to the Buckeyes' cause.
"It was all in the coaches' plan to win. He felt like J.T. would bring an extra element to the game down in the red zone and with certain things in the run game," Jones said. "He proved to be right."
It wasn't the only wrinkle that Ohio State had in its game plan for the Terrapins, as the Buckeyes reimplemented the uptempo "turbo" pace that had been missing from their offense for the better part of the first five weeks of the season. That was particularly evident on Jones' first touchdown throw of the game, a 19-yard strike to Braxton Miller that came mere moments after he found Miller for a 33-yard throw in the second quarter.
After the game, Meyer revealed that he decided to speed his team's pace back up after watching former OSU offensive coordinator Tom Herman's Houston team beat SMU on Thursday night with an offensive approach that looked like everything the Buckeyes had been missing in recent weeks.
"It was a little old school," Meyer said. "I watched Houston play the other night and they had that tempo."
But as it usually does, the conversation about the Ohio State offense came back to the quarterbacks, with Meyer explaining that a signal-caller playing at that pace would ideally possess more of a threat with his legs than Jones does. That doesn't mean he's not capable of running the same offense, but it does help to have a player who can move the chains multiple ways like Barrett can on call.
"Cardale can, that's not his niche, but we kind of had him going there for a little bit with the tempo, going as fast as we can," Meyer said. "And we have a nice set of little plays that are built kind of for Braxton and J.T. I know J.T. obviously can throw it well too. So we're going to keep tinkering with that thing."
So far, so good, at least as far as Saturday's version of Meyer's two-quarterback system is concerned. The defending national champion's toughest stretch of the season is still ahead of it, but the Buckeyes seem to have found their first successful solution for a quarterback controversy that's lasted nearly 10 months.
Until next week, that is.
Ben Axelrod is Bleacher Report's Big Ten lead writer. You can follow him on Twitter @BenAxelrod. Unless noted otherwise, all quotes were obtained firsthand. All statistics courtesy of cfbstats.com. Recruiting rankings courtesy of 247Sports.
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