There’s a certain special pride in seeing a local talent break through. When it happens in English professional soccer — when a lad from down the street makes it to his native pro club — the fans will sang a simple refrain: “He’s one of our own.”
The fans at Ohio State, if they ever felt like breaking into song, would have a tough time doing that about the quarterback position.
The Buckeye State has had great quarterbacks emerge in recent years. They either haven’t come to Ohio State or haven’t panned out.
Tavien St. Clair isn’t the first example. He’s just the latest and maybe most glaring.
Tavien St. Clair Reality Check
When Julian Sayin was injured against Indiana, Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day went with three-star true freshman Luke Fahey, from Mission Viejo High School in California.
He kept St. Clair, the second-year, five-star QB from Bellefontaine, Ohio, on the sideline.
Fahey has started the subsequent two games. Ohio State has lost both.
Day affirmed earlier this week that Fahey will start this weekend against Northwestern.
About St. Clair, he said that this isn’t his “moment,” and broke out the standard coach speak about him being “one play away.”
If St. Clair remains QB2 for the rest of the season behind Fahey, he very well might transfer out, and it’d be another Ohio quarterback that the Buckeyes missed on.
Ohio-Native QBs at Ohio State
The last time Ohio State started a quarterback who played his formative football years in Ohio? More than a decade ago.
Cardale Jones hailed from Glenville High School, the powerhouse coached by Ted Ginn Sr. in the city of Cleveland — and Jones wasn’t even expected originally to ascend to the starting role.
Since then, the Buckeyes did land Joe Burrow from Athens, Ohio — but he didn’t win the starting job, left for LSU and, in his second season with the Tigers, was part of maybe the greatest offense in college football history.
In recent years, Mentor’s Drew Allar went to Penn State. Findlay’s Ryan Montgomery went to Georgia.
St. Clair bucked the trend of Allar and Montgomery and headed to Columbus. Sayin, a California kid, was going to make St. Clair wait — but it seemed eventually, the strong-armed St. Clair would get his shot.
Instead, it’s not his “moment” yet, according to Day. It seems like it never will be.
And while at a program like Ohio State it may not matter where the QB comes from as long as he’s a great one, there’s certainly something disappointing about the Buckeyes not making it work with quarterbacks who grew up within a couple of hours of The ‘Shoe.
Ohio State’s Tavien St. Clair Latest Part of Code Ryan Day Can’t Crack