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Football
Guiton’s Late TD Pass Lifts Gray to Spring Game Victory
By Brandon CastelCOLUMBUS — If there wasn’t a quarterback controversy at Ohio State before, there certainly is now following the Gray team’s 17-14 win in the annual spring game Saturday.
Kenny Guiton
Photo by Dan HarkerWith the his team trailing by four points late in the fourth quarter, quarterback Kenny Guiton orchestrated an 11-play, 89-yard touchdown drive to give the Gray a come-from-behind victory over the Scarlet team in front of 65,223 fans at Ohio Stadium.
“Kenny’s a great player, so I knew we were going to go out there and start moving the ball,” said redshirt freshman Jack Mewhort , who started at right guard for the Gray team.
It was the second touchdown pass of the game for Guiton, who found annual spring game star Taurian Washington in the end zone for the second time on a 45-yard strike to the left corner. The redshirt freshman finished with a game-high 167 yards on 11-of-12 passing.
While it won’t do anything to threaten Terrelle Pryor’s supremacy as the Buckeyes’ No. 1 quarterback this fall, the calls for Guiton to assume the role of No. 2 quarterback will only grow louder, especially considering current No. 2 Joe Bauserman was just 6-of-15 passing with two interceptions.
“Nobody really gives Kenny enough credit and I think today he proved that someday he is going to be the starting quarterback,” said Mewhort, who came to OSU with Guiton in the class of 2009.
“He’s going to be the franchise guy. He was out there threading the needle, playing awesome.”
Taken as the second quarterback in the spring game draft this past Wednesday, Guiton started for the Gray squad. He opened the game with a pair of incomplete deep balls, one a drop by wideout DeVier Posey on a play where Posey was interfered with by Devon Torrence, and another an overthrown ball to Ricky Crawford in the end zone.
He quickly found his stride, however, leading the Gray team 65 yards in five plays for the opening score. He connected on his next four passes, including a 28-yard touchdown strike to Washington over the head of Torrence in the right corner of the South end zone to give the Gray a 7-0 lead in the first quarter.
Terrelle Pryor
Photo by Jim DavidsonBut Terrelle Pryor was not to be outdone, certainly not by one of his backups.
Knowing he had only one quarter to prove himself as a passer, Pryor came out firing on his second possession of the game. After watching Guiton light up his defense through the air, Pryor carved up the Gray squad with a 4-play, 78-yard touchdown drive of his own.
“He knew he wasn’t going to play too much and he knew he couldn’t go live on the run part of it. He focused on what he could do, which is work on his footwork and his coverage recognition and decision making,” OSU Head Coach Jim Tressel said of Pryor, who wore a flag football belt around his waist to avoid contact.
After missing on two of his three passes on the opening drive, Pryor connected on four straight completions of 23, 33, 10 and 12 yards on the second drive. The final completion, a 12-yard strike to Dane Sanzenbacher in the left corner of the end zone tied the game at seven.
“It was very impressive because we came out first drive and scored and I thought that was going to put an edge up for me on Terrelle but he basically said nah, nah come back to me,” Guiton said.
“He drove them down the field and it looked good to me.”
Pryor would get one more drive before the end of the first quarter, but that would be all for him as he finished 8-of-12 passing for 108 yards and the one touchdown to Sanzenbacher, who led all players with four catches for 61 yards.
As expected, the Scarlet team went with Bauserman in the second quarter while the Gray squad had walk-on Justin Siems under center and things fell apart from there. With Bauserman and Siems both struggling (3 interceptions, 0 touchdowns), the game remained gridlocked in a 7-7 tie until the fourth quarter as the two teams combined for 13 punts, including some ugly ones by both Ben Buchanan and Derek Erwin.
Taurian Washington gathers in the pass from Kenny Guiton for the winning score.
Photo by Jim DavidsonThe Gray team finally broke the tie with a 47-yard field goal from freshman Drew Basil to open the fourth quarter. The Scarlet responded immediately with an 11-play, 70-yard touchdown drive capped off by a nifty four-yard touchdown run by Bo DeLande.
The Scarlet team recovered their own onside kick, but Bauserman was picked off in the end zone by safety Nate Oliver, setting up the game-winning drive at the 11 yard line.
“When I knew they scored and we got the interception I was just pumped. I was ready to go,” said Guiton, who complete five of his 10 passes on the final drive for 95 yards, including the 45-yarder to Washington with 47 seconds on the clock.
“I saw they were in two-high, so we sent two one way and I just had to go to my moneymaker,” Guiton said of T-Wash, who finished with three catches for 83 yards and two touchdowns.
“He got me first half so I thought if I tried him a few times in the second half he was going to come through and he did.”
Bauserman was picked off again on the ensuing drive and Gray team held on for a 17-14 victory.
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