Best Bet for Braxton Miller is to Stay at Ohio State for 2015

By Tyler Brett @atylerbrett on January 9, 2015

The Ohio State Buckeyes are preparing themselves for the first-ever College Football Playoff Championship game on January 12 against the Oregon Ducks but one of the biggest storylines in Columbus this week is taking place on their sidelines.

Two-time Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year Braxton Miller is reportedly considering transferring from OSU and playing in 2015 as a graduate transfer somewhere else. While this season has undoubtedly been hard to watch for Miller, his best course of action will be to stay put for his final season and remain on the Buckeyes’ roster.

Miller’s 2014 season was cut short before it began when he injured his throwing shoulder during fall camp in a non-contact injury. The shoulder required surgery that sidelined the prospective Heisman Trophy candidate for the entire year and cast a huge shadow of doubt over the Ohio State season. Urban Meyer, however, got his team rolling with their backup, J.T. Barrett, and Ohio State ultimately didn’t seem to miss Miller all that much.

Barrett, a redshirt freshman, was expected to be the future at quarterback for Ohio State once Miller moved on, but nobody expected him to be ready to play as quickly as he was. He finished the season leading the Big Ten in total offense, rushing for 938 yards while passing for 2,834 yards and a school-record 45 total touchdowns. He was a darkhorse Heisman candidate down the stretch before a broken ankle ended his year in the regular season finale against the Michigan Wolverines (he still finished fifth).

But even with Barrett injured, the Buckeyes didn’t slow down at quarterback.

Heading into the Big Ten title game against the Wisconsin Badgers, Ohio State turned to third-stringer Cardale Jones. Up to that point, Jones’ biggest claim to fame was an infamous tweet about how he wasn’t here to “play school” but he quickly created a new narrative. This one includes his incredible play on the field, first leading a 59-0 destruction of the Badgers for the Big Ten title and then a gutsy 42-35 win over the Alabama Crimson Tide in the College Football Playoff semifinals.

This puts Jones in the driver seat of Ohio State’s high-powered offense for the College Football Playoff Championship game and Ohio State essentially has three viable quarterbacks on the roster with eligibility for 2015 (a truly impressive feat considering the number of programs in the country who struggle to find one viable starting quarterback). While that’s a great testament to the depth of Ohio State and recruiting of Meyer, it creates a log-jam at the position since only one of them can be the starter moving forward.

That’s what has prompted Miller to start looking outside of Columbus for playing time in 2015. Miller is entering his senior season and coming off shoulder surgery on his throwing arm. Even if he avoids the rust that comes with a year off, Ohio State has pretty much seen the ceiling of Miller in this offense. Meanwhile, the two freshman signal callers who were slated to back him up in 2014 showed that they are more than capable of taking this Ohio State team to the top and they haven’t yet reached their full potential. When you’ve seen the future and it’s as bright as it is for the Buckeyes at quarterback, there’s not a lot of reason to go back to the old way of doing things, right?

So Miller’s best bet to play quarterback in 2015 may be to leave Ohio State. There are plenty of programs with openings and Miller has been linked to many of them, including the Florida State Seminoles, who will be losing Heisman winner Jameis Winston to the NFL Draft this spring. Since he’s set to get his degree from Ohio State, he’d be eligible immediately and could make his comeback in 2015 somewhere new, still playing quarterback.

But a change of scenery is no guarantee of success. For every Russell Wilson, who led the Wisconsin Badgers to the Rose Bowl in his only season in Madison, there are countless cases like Jacob Coker, who rode the bench all year for Alabama, or Jake Heaps, who has bounced from program to program during his college career looking for a starting job that he can hold on to.

Coming in as a graduate transfer leaves very little wiggle room to learn in a new environment with a new offense, new teammates, and new coaching staff piling on new expectations onto a quarterback often tabbed as a quick-fix. These quarterbacks are on a fast-track to the starting lineup and don’t get much of a chance to breathe or make mistakes as they learn.

That’s a lot of pressure to put on Miller, whose biggest asset has generally been his athleticism and ability to improvise. He’s had success doing it at Ohio State, where he has had time to build chemistry with the players around him. Will a new group of players on a different team have that same level of comfort with him and know how to react when he takes off with the ball? Probably not right away and that’s assuming Miller can beat out whatever quarterback is already in the system and has some familiarity with the playbook. Miller might represent something new and flashy, but coaches often see past that during fall camp and are more impressed with the consistent and productive candidate.

But let’s just say that Miller does win the starting quarterback job somewhere new. What then? He gets one more year of college glory under his belt and then his football career is likely over. Coming into the 2014 season, Miller needed to show significant improvement in throwing the football if he wanted to be a viable quarterback prospect in the NFL. With a lost year and a theoretical transfer taking place, that development will be stunted significantly.

That means that the best bet for Miller to have an NFL career could be to change positions. While Miller’s quarterback play has been inconsistent at times, his athleticism and playmaking ability are unquestionably elite. That ability to make plays with his legs won’t be affected by the shoulder injury or the year away from the game and could be his ticket to the pros if utilized properly. Just ask any Big Ten defender who has tried to bring Miller down in the open field during the 2012 and 2013 seasons whether or not he’s got something special.

If Miller decides to go the route of a position switch, what coach would be better suited to utilize his athletic talents than Meyer?

Meyer is one of college football’s elite coaches because of his ability to put the athletes on his roster in a position to succeed. He could easily design plays to take advantage of Miller’s athleticism and make him an integral part of the Buckeyes’ offense in 2015, even if it’s not under center. At 6-foot-2, 215 pounds, the senior could make an excellent wide receiver, using his big body to out-muscle defensive backs and use his legs to create plays in open space.

That kind of move is not unprecedented in college football. Blake Bell got to play one full season as the starting quarterback for the Oklahoma Sooners (and two seasons before that in the Bell-dozer package) before he lost his job to Trevor Knight. Instead of transferring or sulking on the bench, Bell made the switch to tight end for the 2014 season, becoming an integral part of the Sooners’ offense in a different way, becoming a solid blocker and catching 16 passes for 214 yards and four touchdowns.

There will always be a place for a player with the talents of Miller on any team, including Ohio State, even if it’s not as the starting quarterback. There aren’t going to be many teams set up for success next season quite like the Buckeyes (who were supposed to be “one year away” from contending in 2014) as they build off their run to the College Football Playoff National Championship. There is talent at every level and Miller can be a part of their success next season, one way or another.

When Miller announced this fall that he would be coming back for the 2015 season, there is no way he could have predicted the situation he would be returning to. In his mind, Miller likely saw himself as the returning hero that would pick Ohio State up after a disappointing season without him. Instead, his backup took the Buckeyes to new heights before his backup’s backup took them even higher, making Miller look replaceable at quarterback. Instead of fans waiting with baited breath for his return, there is now more concern about Barrett’s ankle than Miller’s shoulder.

That puts the two-time Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year at a serious crossroads. If he stays at Ohio State, he will be challenged and will have to re-take his job as the starting quarterback (if that’s where he wants to play). If he doesn’t show that he’s still the No. 1 quarterback in Columbus, he can stick it out and find a new role to help the Buckeyes in 2015 or he can run to a new location this summer and try and get a starting quarterback job handed to him as a graduate transfer.

For Miller’s long-term future, though, he would be best served by staying at Ohio State. It might involve swallowing his pride to play a position other than quarterback, but his greatest chance for success in 2015 and beyond still lies in Columbus.

You can follow Tyler Brett on Twitter @ATylerBrett, on Facebook and on Google.