C.J. Stroud: Signs of Growth and Room for It
While Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud may not have lived up to the hype against Notre Dame, what can we take away from his Week 1 performance?
Few players had more enjoyable tape coming into the 2022 season than Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud. Coming off of a trip to New York for the Heisman ceremony a year ago where he racked up 4,435 yards and 44 touchdowns, the bar has been set high for Stroud.
Entering the season, Stroud has found himself at the top of Hey quite a few 2023 NFL Mock Drafts, touted as a favorite to be QB1 based on his 2021 tape. While his career got off to a rough start with shaky performances against Minnesota and Oregon, Stroud found his groove as he capped off a tremendous first year with a dazzling Rose Bowl firework show against Utah.
There is no better way to start his Heisman campaign and journey towards becoming the top pick in the draft than with a showstopping performance against the number five team in the country.
He, however, did not quite live up to that hype in the ugly 21-10 victory over the Notre Dame Fighting Irish this past Saturday. His box score looked a bit sexier than his tape, finishing the night with 223 yards and two touchdowns on a 24-for-34 hook. However, it was far from a clean game that warranted room for growth from the Redshirt Sophomore quarterback.
What are we to make of Stroud’s up-and-down showing?
The questions C.J. Stroud has to answer
Can the arm velocity off-platform improve?
A surprising question that came up after rewatching this weekend’s matchup was the arm talent of Stroud when he is forced to throw without a sturdy base. When Stroud threw off-platform against Notre Dame, there was a significant decrease in velocity that allowed for defenders to close onto the football.
In one case Stroud even skipped the football in the dirt with an open man on boot concept across his body. We all knew that he did not have Will Levis or Trevor Lawrence-type zip on the football, but I would be lying if I did not admit that this concerns me just a bit.
Hesitation killing big plays early in big games
For whatever reason, Stroud just cannot seem to find a groove early on in big games. This was the case a year ago against Oregon, Penn State, Michigan, and Utah.
While he turned it on in the second half of all of those games, including almost dragging the Ohio State offense down the field the entire second half of the Michigan game, Stroud just has to stop hesitating early on and be the distributor he has proven capable of being.
This game was no different as the Buckeyes’ offense sputtered early in this game, putting up just seven points in the first half against Notre Dame. Going back over the tape as well, it felt like big plays were left off the board in the first half of the game.
In the first play, which happens in the second play of the game, Stroud is just operating a simple spot concept out of trips bunch. His progressions on this concept are 1. Flat 2. Curl ALERT: Corner.
If the boundary defender jumps the flat, then the curl is the next look. However, the linebacker keys and matches the curl as well. Given the pressure, Stroud does not have the time or space to work his eyes backside or escape the pressure before getting pulled to the ground.
Stroud read it right and his process was right, but there is a desire for Stroud to come under center with a natural rhythm to his game organically to feel comfortable throwing darts to his ALERT receivers when the opportunity is there post-snap rather than feeling like he has to work himself into a groove early on.
If this was the second half of the game, Stroud’s eyes probably pick up the rotating safeties towards the field and takes the ALERT without second-guessing. However, given it was the second play of the game, Stroud is more than likely looking to get into a rhythm more than anything else. So he reads it out and both routes are jumped.
He needs to have the mindset that he can come out and take explosive plays when they are there. Notre Dame came in with the gameplan to take away the seam based on Ohio State’s love of throwing up it a year ago. Moving forward, there is a desire to see Stroud have an understanding of how opposing defenses are going to combat offensive trends, and know how to adjust his eyes from the opening snap.
In the second clip, Stroud sees man coverage as the linebacker motions in with his running back. And while the receivers failed to get off the ball and are still looking to the sideline, the bunch trio look creates a rub for the slant route to open up underneath.
The wild part is that Stroud gets his eyes to the open man, but fails to throw the football on time over the middle of the field as the linebacker closes in on the running back’s swing route.
Instead, that little second of hesitation forces Stroud to put the ball behind his receiver and away from the linebacker who has been given time to recover into space and crowd the lane. There is real potential Emeka Egbuka turns on the jets after the catch and gets into the endzone if this ball is on time.
The reasons to continue believing in the hype
Despite the gaps in his game against Notre Dame, there are real reasons why the Stroud hype, who is Dane Brugler’s top graded quarterback, will continue to roll on.
Stroud’s receivers got pushed around
On broadcast it sure looked like Stroud was late and off often against the Fighting Irish. However, when turning on the all-22, it is apparent that he had limited windows to throw into.
It is not an exaggeration to state that this is the worst receiving corps that Ohio State has put on the field in recent years. After graduating two first round picks in Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave, the receiving room is filled with inexperience.
Sure, Ohio State continues to recruit five-stars. Sure, they returned Smith-Njigba as well. However, Smith-Njigba has not proven capable to win consistently except from the slot (over 90% of his snaps a year ago came from the slot according to PFF). It did not help that Smith-Njigba suffered a low grade hamstring injury that will sideline him for some.
Harrison Jr. did not build off of his coming out party at the Rose Bowl a year ago and struggled in this one as he dropped a deep touchdown over his shoulder. Egbuka led the team in receiving, but most of his targets came on manufactured touches to get the ball to him in space.
Julian Fleming, who has struggled with injuries his entire collegiate career after being the top wide receiver recruit in the nation, also sat this game out. Sometimes recruits do not pan out even if they are five stars (not a direct indictment on Fleming).
Flat out, the Notre Dame secondary bullied the Ohio State receivers all night long. This forced Stroud to leverage and force the football into tight windows when he had to make a play behind the sticks.
It was Harrison Jr. and Egbuka’s second-career real start, the health of Smith-Njigba and Fleming will hopefully resolve themselves soon as well. However, this was a poor showing from the unit as a whole as the Fighting Irish defensive backs punched them in the mouth.
C.J. Stroud is capable of making in-game adjustments
There is one thing that has also been as consistent as Stroud’s slow starts in big games: his ability to make adjustments in-game and get back to work.
This proved to be the case once again against Notre Dame as Stroud got hot and just made plays in the second half. He was slow, timid, and hesitant in the first half of the game, but proved decisive as the game goes on.
Notre Dame did an excellent job of clamping down the seam, an area the Ohio State offense loves to exploit (and did so with great frequency a year ago). As the game went along, Stroud began to notice this.
In the first clip, Stroud catches the Notre Dame linebacker bracketing the seam. In doing so, however, the linebacker turns his back completely to the quarterback. Stroud sees this and hits the curl on spacing with ease, treating the linebacker like he is not even on the field.
In the second play in the video above, Stroud is faced with a high-leverage third-and-medium. He sees he has 6-on-6 in the box vs. protection but has two safeties creeping up to the line of scrimmage. Even if the backer drops, he could still be faced with a 7-on-6 situation where there is one more pass rusher than blocker.
However, with both safeties coming on the blitz, Stroud is decisive with the football and replaces the zone vacated by both safeties when they left their posts. Cover-0 against a post with no help over the top is easy money.
And easy money it was for Stroud.
It’s hard to find a more accurate passer
Charting the class a year ago, Stroud stood out as one of the most accurate passers in the country. And he did this in an offense that has perhaps one of the heaviest doses of NFL-caliber concepts in its playbook.
It was more of the same when charting Stroud in this one. While he had a couple of bad misses, most notably a flag route to tight end Cade Stover and the ball he skipped in the dirt, Stroud was pinpoint on the night.
Again, my charting project (coming soon to Substack!) is not a completion percentage based on true completions and incompletions. Instead, I do my best to look at what concept is being run, what the progressions of that concept are, and what the landmark should be.
If a ball is on that landmark, then it is deemed on-target. A good example of an incompletion that was on-target can be found back up in the receiver section. If the football is leveraged correctly and put where it needs to be, it will be judged as on-target (unless it is a poor process that leads to a hospital ball, etc.)
There is a ball where Marvin Harrison Jr. tracks it poorly as he attempts to high point the football rather than run underneath it. There is another to a ball where Stroud throws it low to Jaxon Smith-Njigba to leverage the football away from the defender.
In this game, Stroud was on point throwing deep down the field and working along the boundary (75% accuracy on each of those levels respectively). He was off-target on just two throws over the middle of the field and missed on just one pass under 10 yards in depth. When he was forced to work beyond his first read, he completed 4-of-6 passes. Stroud was perfect working when structure broke down around him.
Stroud’s accuracy was more of the same as what we saw in 2021.
Stroud proving more capable outside of structure
One area that was harped on significantly based on Stroud’s 2021 tape was his unwillingness to use his legs when the opportunity presented itself for him to net positive yards on the ground.
While there was one play where I thought that Stroud should have tucked the football and galloped into green grass, he showed a real prowess for extending plays and making throws outside of structure. He finished a perfect five-for-five when creating and extending on the night against Notre Dame.
This is a positive step in the development of Stroud as he continues to understand that his legs are also a valuable asset to his offense and his play-style.
Sometimes the game comes down to football players making plays, and Stroud was a football player in this one.
Where does C.J. Stroud go from here?
This tendency to start slow against top-tier teams has become quite consistent. He made his mark in that Penn State game, he shot 100 percent from three against Utah after a clunky start, but can Stroud begin to light up top-tier talent from the opening whistle?
The timing of his progressions was a tick slow against Notre Dame, however, and chunk plays were left on the field. His arm when forced to throw off-platform raises some red flags as the velocity on the football takes a substantial hit as well.
Regardless, there is still plenty of reason to dive right back into the C.J. Stroud hype.
Stroud is a bright young man who is quite capable of making in-game adjustments when he hits a wall early on. This has shown up time and time again as the Buckeyes’ offense suffered slow starts against Penn State, Michigan, and Utah a year ago before Stroud found a groove (‘twas too little too late against the Wolverines).
There is no reason to worry about the accuracy Stroud throws with, and his increased ability shown against the Fighting Irish to operate outside of structure was magnificent to see. He sets his own protection and is well-equipped to identify pressure.
He has two games to work out the early game jitters against Arkansas State and Toledo before facing off against a ranked Wisconsin team in Week 4. In a perfect world, seeing the Ohio State quarterback let it rip from the opening whistle would go a long way in feeling confident in the continued trust in his ability to one day lead an NFL franchise.
His performance was far from perfect, but Stroud is still a talented dude who deserves his name in lights.