Sophomore Tavien St. Clair showed moments of promise during the spring game. But what’s happened since? We’ll see soon enough. (Press Pros File Photos)
Ryan Day’s Tuesday press conference over who’s the next quarterback was reminiscent of the scene from ‘Slapshot’ where Paul Newman is forced to play the Hanson brothers. And like Newman, Day has no other choice.
As I read Jeff Gilbert’s post last week following Ryan Day’s press conference over who replaces Julian Sayin at quarterback, I was reminded of the scene from the old hockey movie, Slapshot, where Dave ‘Killer’ Carlson gets beat up in a fight, he can’t play, and Paul Newman (coach Reg Dunlop) has to make a decision between periods about who plays next.
You know the movie. And the scene. Left with no other choice, Newman turns to the recently acquired Hanson brothers, who’ve wrapped their hands in aluminum foil because Toe Blake once did it. The Hansons were a freak show on skates!
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But Newman (Dunlop) turns to them and says, “Ok, guys. Show us what you’ve got.”
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Day was anything but transparent about who replaces Julian Sayin Saturday when the Buckeyes play USC in Los Angeles. My impression? A lot of hem and haw instead of “show us what you got.”
“We’re going to start to put together a plan on how we’re going to move forward, and we’re going to play the guy that gives us the best chance to win,” said Day, drawing directly from the coach’s manual.
And for whatever coaches like Ryan Day say at times like this, it’s hard to admit that what motivates them when they make a critical decision at quarterback. And that is, aside from how they play, how’s it going to look?
Or in this case…how’s this going to look to high school football coaches in Ohio whose quarterback I might want to recruit in the future?
Luke Fahey was a three-star, three-sport quarterback from Mission Viejo, California, where he threw for 7,000 yards and 68 touchdowns during his high school career.
Bellefontaine’s Tavien St. Clair throws the deep ball against Coldwater High School in a 2023 high school game.
Tavien St. Clair is the Ohio kid, a five-star 6’4″ quarterback from nearby Bellefontaine, Ohio where he threw for 10,000 yards and a hundred touchdowns, give or take.
And while St. Clair raised some eyebrows when the Buckeyes recruited him, they had no choice. You either take the state’s five-star quarterback who can throw the ball seventy five yards…or you risk losing the next Ohio five-star quarterback who comes along.
Why? Because of perception. The coach thinks that what comes out of California, or Texas, or Florida is better because he assumes they played against better competition – better than St. Clair played against in the Central Buckeye Conference. And it’s hard to disavow. Action speaks louder than words. It’s how it’s always worked.
“He thinks our guy isn’t good enough to play for Ohio State.”
Politics. You have to offer and sign him, because he might go to Michigan or Penn State. And St. Clair had that choice.
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And then there’s the reality when you get your recruit on campus – of how he practices, how he reacts to coaching, to criticism, and his personality in the face of competition. And Day says that’s what will determine who he chooses. And it has to. That’s reality.
But more reality? How they play in practice doesn’t always dictate how they play in a game. It’s different, and largely predicated on player personality and how nerves and fear motivate performance.
There are no simple answers, and they cannot come during the spring game. Quarterbacks either do it, or they don’t.
Example. Long ago as a freshman I made my college baseball debut in relief. And leading late in the game our starter ran out of gas and I was brought into the game to get one out. The coach said, “throw the breaking ball”. On a cold and windy day I did, but it wasn’t my best breaking ball and the hitter looped a wind-blown fly ball down the line that hit the foul pole. Home run, lead lost, and game lost. And when the coach came to take me out of the game he told me he was sorry he brought me on the trip. Ouch!
Twenty four hours later – different day, different team, he was forced to put me in again. This time I pitched three scoreless innings, and gave up one hit. I learned, and learned quickly, afraid of hanging another curveball; but confident in my ability not to, as well. It just works that way.
Whatever Ryan Day thinks he knows about Luke Fahey or Tavien St. Clair he really won’t know until he gives them the same opportunity he gave Julian Sayin last year, and with no guarantee. That’s how it works, and Sayin’s hung his share of curveballs already – against Indiana and Miami last year. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn’t.
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Either might light things up against Southern Cal, or they might flop. You don’t know until you play the game.
Day has said that “Going into the last few games, Luke’s been ahead of Tavien in terms of what we’ve seen.” But that’s what they said about Dwayne Haskins, too. And ultimately Joe Burrow left for LSU in 2018 when Urban Meyer picked Haskins, and you know the rest of that story.
Trust it, Fahey and St. Clair are going to get game opportunity to prove they can, or they can’t. Day has no choice, especially in Ohio. And it he doesn’t give St. Clair a chance it might to be a cold day in you know where when another Ohio quarterback of that notoriety believes the recruiting pitch.
And it can’t come at mop-up time, as Gilbert wrote. It has to come on Saturday. It’s Hansons time for the Buckeyes. Show us what you’ve got.
Dwayne Haskins worked out fine for Urban in 2018. People forget the losses.
But if you lose two five-star quarterbacks…that’s bad juju.
People don’t forget that.
It is…a coach’s pickle.
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