COLUMBUS – Two of the NFL’s top young quarterbacks, whose paths took them through Columbus, face off in Cincinnati Sunday when Joe Burrow and the Bengals host C.J. Stroud and the Houston Texans.
Call it the “Buckeye Bond.”
An Athens native, Burrow spent three years at Ohio State and earned a degree but didn’t play much football. He transferred to LSU when the Buckeyes opted to go with Dwayne Haskins as the starting QB in 2018.
In Baton Rouge, Burrow won a national championship and Heisman Trophy and was the top pick in the 2020 draft by the Bengals.
“I always said I went to school at Ohio State, and I played football at LSU,” Burrow said this week. “That’s how I think about it.”
Stroud, from California, was a two-year starter at Ohio State where he broke school records and was a Heisman finalist at the end of the 2021 and ’22 seasons. He was the second overall pick by the Texans in the 2023 draft.
Both were nurtured by Ryan Day, considered one of the best quarterback coaches in college football.
Both were good NFL quarterbacks almost from the start. Besides the two of them, only three other quarterbacks in history passed for at least 2,250 yards as rookies during their first eight NFL starts.