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Ohio State quarterback Braxton Miller will remain with the Buckeyes this year, the school’s athletic director said.
SEC schools wanting to improve their quarterback situation through a Miller transfer may have to give up hope on that option.
“He’s not going anywhere,” athletic director Gene Smith said, according to the Ohio State website elevenwarriors.com. “If he was (going to leave), it would have happened.”
Former Notre Dame quarterback Everett Golson is expected to announce his next destination very soon and seems headed to Florida State. Virginia quarterback Greyson Lambert also will transfer, though it’s unclear if an SEC team would welcome his services.
Miller, a redshirt senior, appeared poised to enter the 2014 season as one of the Heisman Trophy favorites until a knee injury sidelined him. J.T. Barrett and Cardale Jones played very well in his stead as the Buckeyes won the first-ever College Football Playoff.
In 2013, Miller ran for more than 1,000 yards and 12 touchdowns in addition to completing 63.5 percent of his passes for another 24 scores.
Despite exiting spring practice likely as the team’s third quarterback, Miller seems willing to compete through fall camp and sit on the bench in his final college season if necessary, rather than looking to start elsewhere — likely somewhere in the SEC like Alabama or Georgia.
“My conversation with him was well before spring ball. He’s working out in the weight room and we got into a conversation and I just asked him, I said, ‘You good? All these rumors out there, you good? You need some help if you want to transfer?'” Smith said, according to elevenwarriors.com. “He said, ‘Mr. Smith, I’m not going anywhere. I love it here.'”
The Buckeyes athletic director also cited a long list of injuries that Miller has suffered during his college career, and suggested the program’s medical staff, and their familiarity with Miller, was one major benefit to him staying at the school.
So, if the report is true, coach Urban Meyer will enter the season as the defending national champion with three very capable quarterbacks.
An itinerant journalist, Christopher has moved between states 11 times in seven years. Formally an injury-prone Division I 800-meter specialist, he now wanders the Rockies in search of high peaks.
