There are many ways to become a legend.
One of the fastest ways to reach that elevated tier is to win when absolutely no one thinks it’s possible. Beating tremendous odds while beating your opponent can make you legendary.
Think about Buster Douglas beating Mike Tyson for the heavyweight championship when the odds makers were giving 42-1 odds against the unknown fighter from Columbus being able to out-punch Iron Mike.
Think about the 13 colonies taking down the British empire (with a big assist from Britain’s mortal enemy France).
Think about the United States men’s hockey team beating the supposedly unbeatable and amateur in name only Soviet Union team and winning the gold medal at the 1980 Winter Olympics.
Those victories will all be remembered long after the players in them are gone.
But there are many, many more times that the team which appears to have no chance really doesn’t have a chance.
Think about Ohio State’s football game against Akron Saturday night for an example of that.
Ohio State, which hasn’t played well for four quarters in any of its three games, could play at that same level Saturday night and still win comfortably.
It would take a miracle, maybe several of them for a team like Akron, whose last five recruiting classes have ranked No. 127, No. 114, No. 124, No. 121 and No. 125 nationally, to leave Ohio Stadium with a victory tonight.
Ryan Day, of course, would never express that kind of certainty about Ohio State winning.
But he did announce on Thursday that starting quarterback C.J. Stroud will rest his sore shoulder and probably would play only in an emergency situation against Akron. If OSU were playing a better team he might have waited until game time to reveal his decision.
Assuming the Buckeyes don’t somehow gift wrap the game and hand it to Akron, the other OSU quarterbacks will be the big story.
The second-biggest story will be if the defense can play better. But the quarterbacks will overshadow that.
Either redshirt freshman Jack Miller or freshman Kyle McCord is expected to start and it’s likely both will get significant playing time.
Miller took around 10 snaps last season. McCord would be playing in his first college game. Neither one has thrown a pass in a college game.
Stroud has passed for 963 yards and 8 touchdowns in No. 10 Ohio State’s first three games. The redshirt freshman had 484 yards passing in a 35-28 loss to Oregon, 294 yards in a 45-31 win over Minnesota and 185 yards in a 41-20 win over Tulsa last Saturday.
Despite those numbers, a segment of Ohio State’s fan base has been calling for giving the other quarterbacks a chance to show what they can do.
A Twitter poll, which I did yesterday, asked who will be Ohio State’s starting quarterback a month from now.
Stroud led the voting with 47 percent. McCord got 44 percent of the votes and Miller was picked by 9 percent of the people who responded.
So, a majority of Ohio State fans who shared their opinion want to change quarterbacks. That should be surprising but it’s not.
The prediction: Ohio State 49, Akron 7.
.neFileBlock {
margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.neFileBlock p {
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
.neFileBlock .neFile {
border-bottom: 1px dotted #aaa;
padding-bottom: 5px;
padding-top: 10px;
}
.neFileBlock .neCaption {
font-size: 85%;
}
