LGHL Asks: Who is your favorite Ohio State quarterback of the 21st Century?

From now until preseason camp starts in August, Land-Grant Holy Land will be writing articles around a different theme every week. This week is all about taking sides in head-to-head debates. You can catch up on all of the Theme Week content here and all of our ”This or That” articles here.

We are once again putting you to the test, Buckeye fans. For our “This or That” Week, we are asking you to make some difficult decisions by comparing some options. In this week’s LGHL Asks fan survey, we want you to pick your favorite Buckeye quarterback from the past 22 seasons and then make some difficult Sophie’s Choices for the football and men’s basketball teams.

So, go through the questions and answer them in the survey below, and then if you have more to say, you are welcome to pop into the comments section to provide the rationale behind your choice.

Question 1: Who is your favorite 21st Century Ohio State quarterback?

We’ve all heard it over the past few years, “Ohio State quarterbacks are products of the talent and system around them. They suck in the NFL.” I know that’s garbage and you know that’s garbage. Over the two+ decades of the 21st Century, the Buckeyes have had a pretty impressive line of signal callers that I would put up against just about anyone in college football, let alone the Big Ten.

So, which one was your favorite? Was it the savvy leadership of Troy Smith or J.T. Barrett? The freaky athleticism of Braxton Miller or Terrelle Pryor? The cerebral efficiency of Craig Krenzel or Kenny Guiton? What about the complete package of Justin Fields or C.J. Stroud? How about the cannon arms of Cardale Jones or Dwayne Haskins?

There really is no wrong answer to this question, so let us know in the survey below.

Question 2: Would you rather (football edition)

My colleague Megan Husslein posed a similar-ish question yesterday, but I want to take it a little further. We all know the goal for every OSU squad is to make — and then win — the College Football Playoff. But, what if they come up short of that goal? Is a Big Ten title more desirous than seeing their rivals have a crash-and-burn season?

If I’m being honest, I don’t know which one I would pick. If this was four or five years ago, seeing Michigan flame out for a season really wouldn’t have been as interesting to me, because that was a fairly regular occurrence. But now that they have won The Game two years in a row, I’m kind of longing for the days of Corn and Blue humiliation.

Question 3: Would you rather men’s (basketball edition)

There are two trains of thought here for me. One is to have a consistently competitive and entertaining product to watch year in and year out. Yes, they might never reach the highs that I would want them to, but they also wouldn’t give us as miserable of stretches as we experienced last season.

On the other hand, it might be worth suffering through spells like that if it means that we get a truly epic run — with a chance for a title — every once in a while.

I look at it similarly to how I look at the Cincinnati Reds: My thoughts on my favorite baseball have long been that if they remain interesting until August when fall college football camp starts, I consider that a success. If they then go and do something stupid, like actually contend — or, heaven for bid, make — the playoffs, that’s just a bonus for me.

While it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, the college basketball season is so long that I do really prize competitiveness in the team that I follow. So, while I loved Thad Matta’s two Final Four runs, I think the thing that I appreciated about his tenure more than anything was that he averaged nearly 26 wins per season, meaning that they were almost always in contention for something, and there for a worthwhile television viewing product.

Share your thoughts here:

Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Ohio State fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.