COLUMBUS, Ohio — New Ohio State starting quarterback C.J. Stroud shook off early wobbles and tossed four second-half touchdown passes to bury Minnesota in the season opener. The sink-or-swim indoctrination for the second-year freshman continues Saturday when he leads the No. 3 Buckeyes against No. 12 Oregon.
This week he’ll have the crowd on his side, with Ohio Stadium returning to its full capacity of over 100,000 for the first time in nearly two years.
By a quirk of the schedule, Ohio State (1-0, 1-0 Big Ten) won’t get its usual early tune-up games until weeks 3 and 4. That means scant room for mistakes from Stroud, who got little mop-up duty behind Justin Fields in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
In the first half against Minnesota, Stroud overthrew receivers and had a pass intercepted. In the second half, in the rain, he dominated.
“He kind of got through it on his own,” said All-American receiver Chris Olave, who caught two of Stroud’s second-half touchdowns. “I know it was tough. It was kind of loud out there. The atmosphere and environment was huge. But we kind of stood by him and told him it was going to be cool. It was all him, though, at the end of the day.”
Coach Ryan Day said he knew there would be miscues, given that Stroud had yet to throw a pass in a college football game.
“I just think going through that first game and going through some adversity opens your eyes to some things,” Day said. “And then (him) working through that was great. So it’s just the first step in a long journey for our offense, and certainly for C.J. We’ll see what this week brings us.”
Oregon (1-0), meanwhile, had its own struggles and barely got past unranked Fresno State. New starting quarterback Anthony Brown, a sixth-year senior transfer, won it with a 30-yard keeper with 2:57 left in the game.
The task will be more formidable this week for Brown and the Ducks, who come in as two-touchdown underdogs.
“If you’re a real competitor you always want to test yourself against the very best,” Oregon coach Mario Cristobal said. “Ohio State is an elite program from top to bottom, a storied program, tremendous history at a place where they’ve had tremendous success. You come to a place like Oregon to have opportunities like this.”