Devin Brown begins new chapter in Ohio State QB story with Will Howard’s entrance

admin | January 5, 2024 | Other Clubs | No Comments

Without a mysterious social media message, no day of conjecture regarding Devin Brown’s future with Ohio State football would be complete.

Brown posted a black-and-white shot on Instagram hours before former Kansas State quarterback Will Howard committed to the Buckeyes. It appears to show him coming into the tunnel into the AT&T Stadium locker room after a 14-3 Cotton Bowl loss to Missouri.

Brown used his own words to make a point, as he has done in previous posts. In this situation, he turned to the lyrics of Bankroll Freddie’s song “Patience” featuring Lil Baby. The final verse of the song was displayed beneath the photo.

“You gotta be patient / I say you gotta be patient, and waitin’ / On what’s mine, it’s my time, I’m finna take it, take it”

Many took that as a comment on Howard’s arrival. I’m told it actually referred to the ankle injury Brown suffered late in the first quarter of the Cotton Bowl. That injury cost Brown the complete audition both he and Ohio State hoped would provide some clarity to the team’s quarterback situation for 2024.

It also all but ensured coach Ryan Day would need to find a transfer quarterback such as Howard to at worst stabilize the position heading into the offseason.

After the game, Day described Brown’s injury as a high ankle sprain. OSU WR Emeka Egbuka announced a few days before the Cotton Bowl that he had tightrope surgery to fix the same injury he suffered midseason. According to a source, it has not yet been established if Brown will require ankle surgery.

Even those who misconstrued Brown’s post accurately deduced his attitude. While Howard’s visit and pledge came after the transfer portal had closed for the winter, Brown was probably unconcerned. He couldn’t have been surprised by OSU’s mutual interest in Howard. He decided to stay for at least one more shot at the starting job.

By doing so, he almost certainly made Ohio State better in 2024.

Brown’s Cotton Bowl audition was a disappointment, although not due to his personal shortcomings. He got out to a rough start, which was to be expected for a second-year player making his first start in a New Year’s Six bowl with significant consequences for his career. The rest of the script, in which he settled down like Kyle McCord did throughout the regular season and found his stride, was thrown out when Brown twisted his ankle.

McCord had one game of starting experience over Brown when the quarterback competition began last January. Howard will have 26, including three rivalry wins over Kansas and an upset of national runner-up TCU in the Big 12 championship game in 2022. Nothing Brown does between now and September will change that.

Many of Howard’s quarterback qualities, on the other hand, are the same ones that evaluators have always loved in Brown. Howard, who is both strong and mobile, is a more refined version of what Brown could and may become.

When McCord secured the starting job at the start of the season, some within the program backed him over Brown. He was rated as a top-50 talent for a reason, and he is set to begin his third spring with the program. That’s a different kind of encounter, but one with meaning.

The closer Brown gets to defeating Howard, the better OSU’s offense will be this fall. And what if he shows up in such a way that Day’s decision becomes too close to call in August? Brown will very certainly have a post ready for that as well.