58 colleges with 1st-round QB picks since Ohio State’s last before Dwayne Haskins

Dwayne Haskins went 15th overall to Washington in the NFL Draft It ends astonishing streak for Ohio State, one of the best recruiters and most dominant teams in college football.

In 1982, the Baltimore Colts drafted OSU quarterback Art Schlichter with the fourth pick. He only lasted parts of four years in the league, and he’s more famous now for going to prison for stealing to finance a gambling habit.

Schlichter was the last Ohio State QB to get taken in the first round. Nine Buckeye QBs have been drafted elsewhere, but nobody higher than Tom Tupa, 68th overall, in the 1988 third round.

It makes some sense that Ohio State hasn’t had a first-round (or even second-round) QB since Schlichter. Going back to Troy Smith in the mid-2000s, the Buckeyes’ QBs have tended to be great runners who ranged from bad to somewhat above-average passers: Terrelle Pryor, Braxton Miller, J.T. Barrett, and Cardale Jones. (In the most uninformed corners, this perception may follow Haskins.) Until Haskins and now-head coach Ryan Day took the reins in 2018, OSU was a spread-to-run team.

But that doesn’t explain the late ‘80s, the ‘90s, or the early aughts.

There were 88 first-round QBs between 1983, the first year of OSU’s drought, and the few picks before Haskins went in 2019. They’ve come from all kinds of programs, but let’s start low on the food chain. (Thanks to the great search engine at Sports Reference for its help.)

Wentz’s North Dakota State would have wailed on the vast majority of FBS teams at the time he was drafted in 2016. Actually, NDSU still would. These are nonetheless programs at a level that currently allows 63 scholarships (max) producing more of these guys than OSU.

The non-power ranks have produced two Super Bowl-winning starters (Dilfer and Roethlisberger), a few solid NFL QBs (Pennington, Leftwich), and probably the oddest fact on this list, which is that Tulane had two first-round QBs between 2002 and 2004.

I’m exercising my right to double-count these players’ JUCOs to suit my own agenda. I will not count Troy Aikman for Oklahoma, however, because I don’t want to.

We all have those players whose alma maters we forget, even though we know in our hearts they went there. For me, Cutler’s a first-team all “oh yeah, he went there” talent.

Houston’s here because when Ware and Klingler got drafted, in 1990 and ‘92, the Cougars were still in the Southwest Conference, which had A&M, Texas, and nearly half of the modern Big 12. Seems like a power conference to me. Let’s just move along.

(Both of the Houston QBs were pretty significant busts — top-seven picks two years apart who went on to go a combined 7-23 with 21 TD passes to 30 picks.)

For at least a year, Buckeye fans will now be able to add “Michigan hasn’t had a first-round QB since Jim Harbaugh” to their list of reasons to laugh at their rivals.