Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 by Adam Wagner
Pryor surprises no one by picking Ohio State
Terrelle Pryor has finally announced his college decision and it is the same one that it would have been had Pryor made his announcement on National Signing Day, as the Jeanette product will be headed to Columbus, Ohio to play for Jim Tressel and the Ohio State University. If anything, Pryor’s decision to wait to make his decision may have been detrimental to the Ohio State cause as the quarterback claimed that Michigan was in the running until Wednesday morning.
At Ohio State, Pryor will have the benefit of not being thrown into the fire immediately and being able to learn the system for a year before being handed the program. At Michigan, Pryor would have been the immediate starter and would have been expected to produce in an offense seemingly designed for him, albeit one that is designed primarily for the college game and doesn’t highlight the NFL abilities of quarterbacks like Ohio State’s system does.
Pryor will be given the opportunity to take the field next season in a role that is
continually being compared to that of Tim Tebow on Florida’s 2006 team. Like Florida, Ohio State has a capable senior quarterback and a freshman quarterback who is one of the highest-rated in the land. Like Tebow, Pryor is expected to take over the system once that senior leaves. Like Florida fans, Ohio State fans are going to want to see what Pryor can do next season. Whether that means bringing Pryor on in goal-line situations or letting him play a certain amount in each game is not yet clear, but Tressel will probably take a page from Florida coach Urban Meyer’s playbook and utilize Pryor’s skills the way that Florida utilized Tebow’s.
Most relevant to the Pittsburgh sports scene is Pryor’s revelation that he probably would 
have looked harder at Penn State if he had been assured that Tom Bradley would be the coach when the Joe Paterno era finally comes to an end. That should be the single most obvious sign to Penn State administrators yet about the way that they should handle the coaching situation there, meaning that they should inform Paterno that this coming season will be his final one and tell the world that Bradley will be the coach starting in two years (they could just sign Bradley to a lengthy contract that states that he is guaranteed the job, but that would allow the Paterno reign, something that needs to come to an end, to keep on going).
Now, Penn State is going to have to deal with the threat of Terrelle Pryor at the helm of a national champion contender for the next three or four seasons.
Leave a Reply