SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — He is awesomely mediocre, either a legend or a desert mirage, and that’s just fine by Ohio State’s most polarizing player.
J.T. Barrett did not come to the Fiesta Bowl to sway public opinion.
“I really don’t try to please anybody,” he said.
No, the quarterback who watched from the Buckeyes’ last national title run in 2014 from a motorized scooter came here this week in pursuit of something a little more important.
A chance of his own to deliver the defining wins in a career filled with them.
What more could you ask of Barrett?
RELATED: OSU prepares for dangerous Clemson
Well, since you asked ... the postal service just returned a few of his passes from the Michigan game to sender. Wrong zip code.
Yes, Barrett could give more. But that’s missing the bigger truth.
For all of our armchair appraisals of his arm, it’s time to recognize Barrett — one of Ohio State’s most prolific winners and a leader coach Urban Meyer has said should someday be his successor in Columbus — may be just the right man in just the right system leading these youthful Buckeyes into their playoff semifinal showdown against Clemson.
“I kind of look at him like Tom Brady,” Buckeyes linebacker Chris Worley said of Barrett, who is 26-3 as a starter and holds a good chunk of the school’s passing records. “May not be the fastest, may not be the tallest, may not have the strongest arm in the game. But at the end of the day, if you need a quarterback to win the game, you better put J.T. in. That’s what it’s all about.”
Get past the comparison to a three-time Super Bowl MVP, and the point is well taken.
Barrett is not a lot of things.
He is not Deshaun Watson, the dynamic Clemson quarterback who said, “I’m the best player in the country,” and might be right. [Such modesty recalled Mark Twain, who once said, “I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.”]
Nor is he — in our mind — an NFL quarterback. Doesn’t have the arm or the accuracy, as Clemson safety Jadar Johnson indelicately noted on the bulletin board this week.
“I don’t think he’s a bad player, he’s definitely a good player,” Johnson said. “He just doesn’t stand out as one of the best quarterbacks we’ve played this year as a defense. Actually, I feel like he’s a great quarterback on his legs. I don’t feel real strong about his arm. I don’t feel like he’s one of the best passers.”
He wasn’t wrong. Clemson faced five quarterbacks this season with better passer ratings than Barrett, whose arm especially betrayed him the past two games, in the gusts at Michigan State and the next week against Michigan. The redshirt junior completed 25 of 54 passes for 210 yards in those two games.
During the UM game, more than a few on the Twitter machine called for Meyer — evoking Woody Hayes’ second-half swap of star Rex Kern for Ron Maciejowski in the 1969 Michigan game — to make a stop in Crazytown and yank Barrett with the season on the line in favor of ... redshirt freshman Joe Burrow.
Yet Barrett is the classic careful-what-you-wish-for case study.
We saw what happened next. Ohio State rode its big-play defense and the legs of Barrett — who ran 30 times for 125 yards — to victory, just as it has so much of the season.
If we question why Barrett has not evolved as a passer from his record-setting 2014 season, it is also fair to note he misses that gifted cast of receivers and, perhaps just as important, new Texas coach Tom Herman as his quarterbacks coach.
And that, for all of the criticism, he remains a very effective college player, especially playing for a coach traditionally so reliant on the quarterback run. For this team — an offensively flawed group that may have to return Tressel Ball to style to capture the title — he is the ideal fit. Never mind all that he is not. Here’s what he is: a galvanizing locker-room force, a sharp decision maker — he threw 24 touchdowns against five interceptions this season — and Meyer’s trusted blanket.
Save for Tim Tebow, the only quarterback Meyer has leaned on harder was Josh Harris at Bowling Green in 2002. Harris either ran or passed on 59.8 percent of the Falcons snaps that season. Barrett was used on 58.4 percent of the Buckeyes’ snaps this year.
That rate increases to roughly 104 percent when it matters most.
“I’ve always been that guy who gives it to my best player, in those situations,” Meyer said. “Braxton Miller was that guy, Tim Tebow was that guy, Ezekiel Elliott was that guy. ... I know one thing about J.T. and that’s if there’s a chance, he’ll get it.”
Naturally, Meyer takes issue with the mud-slingers.
“Does he throw the best curl route or whatever?” he said of Barrett. “I don’t know that, but I don’t care. Won-lost record, TD-to-interception ratio, and passing efficiency are things I always look at. But number one, without question, is the won-lost record. Do you win games?”
And few do that more than Barrett.
What more can you ask? OK, we won’t go there again.
But know that Barrett’s legend at Ohio State is secure. The only question now is how big it grows.
Contact David Briggs at: dbriggs@theblade.com, 419-724-6084 or on Twitter @DBriggsBlade.
First Published December 29, 2016, 5:37 a.m.
