Davey O'Brien Award watch list contains Cardale Jones, no other Ohio State QB

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Who's going to win the Ohio State starting quarterback job? That's what everyone in college football is waiting to find out before the start of the 2015 season.

But the folks at the Davey O'Brien Award — which is annually given to the nation's top quarterback — seem to have made their prediction.

Cardale Jones was the only Ohio State signal caller to appear on the award's watch list when it was released Thursday. Braxton Miller and J.T. Barrett were nowhere to be found.

That's a different approach than the Maxwell Award took. That award is given to college football's best player each season, and all three guys appeared on that watch list.

Jones, of course, is the one of the three freshest in the minds of college football fans and observers. He was terrific in relief of an injured Barrett in the Buckeyes' three postseason wins over Wisconsin, Alabama and Oregon en route to a national championship, the eighth in program history.

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But it remains to be seen whether Jones will get the starting gig in what will be the most anticipated position battle in recent college football memory. It was Jones who won the season's biggest games in December and January, but Barrett had a remarkable regular season, finishing fifth in voting for the Heisman Trophy, and Miller was the two-time reigning Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year before his preseason shoulder injury knocked him out for the year.

Surely whoever wins the competition this offseason will be among the favorites for the Davey O'Brien Award, but they'll have stiff competition within the Big Ten. In addition to Jones, two other Big Ten quarterbacks appeared on Thursday's watch list: Michigan State's Connor Cook and Penn State's Christian Hackenberg.

Four Big Ten quarterbacks have won the Davey O'Brien Award: Iowa's Chuck Long in 1985, Penn State's Kerry Collins in 1994, Iowa's Brad Banks in 2002 and Ohio State's Troy Smith in 2006.

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