Ryan Day finds himself in a familiar position, looking for Ohio State’s next starting quarterback heading into the season.

Since taking over as head coach, Day has already had a pair of QB battles that eventually led to Justin Fields and CJ Stroud leading electric offenses in Columbus. He also oversaw a similar QB battle in 2018 as acting head coach, OC and QBs coach for the Buckeyes.

During his appearance at Big Ten Media Days, Day referenced being in this spot before:

“In I guess the last now going on seven years, we’ve been in this situation quite a few times at Ohio State and just not knowing who the quarterback is going to be going into the season,” said Day. “You had a new one with Dwayne (Haskins), had a new one with Justin, had a new one with CJ, and now here we are again.”

Day was responding to a question about Ohio State potentially playing 2 QBs to begin the season. While the head coach admitted he would like for one player to emerge from the battle during camp, he did not rule anything out with a lot to be decided in fall camp:

When you go into these situations, you’d like for someone to emerge during camp, but who knows if that’s going to happen or not? You’d like to see somebody emerge, and then you name them, just like we’ve done with CJ and Justin and Dwayne. If that doesn’t happen, then maybe that is the case. We’ll have to evaluate it from there.

We’ll see. I know that we’ve got to go in and win that first game on the road, so we’re going to do everything we can and do what’s right for Ohio State.

Again, I’m excited to see these guys compete and go put it on the field. It’s different when you’re throwing routes in the air and going through workouts than when you’re actually playing football. We’ve got to go start playing football here and figure out who the quarterback is going to be.

B1G opener

Finding the right QB is always important, but Ohio State begins the season with a conference game right out of the gate. The Buckeyes will face Indiana on the road in Week 1 before returning home for a pair of nonconference matchups.

Devin Brown was limited in the spring due to an injury while Kyle McCord has always stood as the likely winner of the QB battle to begin the season. We will see if McCord is indeed able to grab the QB1 role and run with it in fall camp or if Brown is able to push for early playing time to begin the season.