MASSILLON, Ohio – Aeneas abandoned Troy to build Rome.
Paul Brown left Massillon to build a winning program at Ohio State and give Cleveland and Cincinnati pro football. Massillon’s senior quarterback Justin Zwick left Orrville, Ohio, for a new home in Massillon, and his odyssey will continue to OSU.
The weight of Saturdays in Ohio will rest squarely on his shoulders starting in 2002. Zwick is expected to build something great. Maybe not Rome, but close.
Spring 2002. The frustration that was No. 8 will be gone. The untested that is Scott McMullen, Craig Krenzel and Rick McFadden will be left over. Justin Zwick will arrive.
And so, the epic will begin.
Who’s going to start?
It is everyone’s favorite question in Columbus, with the coach being the exception. The only certain answer is that there will be a new quarterback next season.
Texas landed a highly touted quarterback named Chris Simms in 1999 and Major Applewhite stood in his way.
The difference at Ohio State is that there is no Applewhite; there is no proven winner at OSU now and definitely not next season.
Justin Zwick played the last home game of his high school career Friday.
“He had his 100th touchdown pass tonight, and in four years of starting he has got a lot of experience that most quarterbacks don’t have because they only start one or two, maybe three years but typically one of two,” William Zwick, Justin’s father, said. “If they want him to compete he’s got a lot of experience; he’s a rookie coming in, but he’s got a lot of experience.”
Justin Zwick is a competitor. He says the right things, that he will do whatever the coaches want him to do, that he would even red shirt. But there is a reason he is not going to play basketball in the winter for Massillon.
He wants to play for the Buckeyes. He wants to start. It radiates from him.
“This offseason is going to really be big for Justin. He is going to be learning a new offense,” Dan Stultz, former OSU kicker and Orrville High School graduate, said. “So when he comes in they’re going to be throwing stuff at him every day, and if he does that preparation this winter he’ll be much more ready for that.”
Massillon’s coach Rick Shepas is an advocate of a high powered offense. The game against Dayton Chaminade-Julienne on Friday looked like the St. Louis Rams led by Kurt Warner torching a NFL defense. It turned out that was Massillon and Justin Zwick burning Dayton Chaminade-Julienne for more than 400 yards passing and four touchdowns.
Shepas’ offense allows Justin Zwick to throw the ball around, call plays, check off at the line of scrimmage, and Justin Zwick does it – 360 yards passing versus powerhouse St. Ignatius – well.
“I just go out and do what I can,” Justin Zwick said. “I just like to throw the ball around. This year I have a better understanding of what we’re trying to do with the offense, seeing what the defense gives me what I can do to counteract that. I just get more comfortable with the game.”
The new kid is called the best quarterback prospect to enter OSU since Art Schlicter.
Zwick could be better.
The Spotlight
Steve Bellisari and John Cooper felt it at Ohio State. They didn’t like it.
Justin Zwick has felt it in Massillon. He’s doing all right.
Football was born in Massillon. The town is small. Going there feels like going back in time, or driving through a Norman Rockwell painting. The Massillon Tigers home is named after Paul Brown, it usually entertains more than 10,000 fans on a Friday night. The Tigers have won 22 state titles.
Go Tigers.
“It means everything. I came here for the tradition. I came from a place with great tradition,” Justin Zwick said. “You do everything for the game, whatever you can do, you just do it. With a high school like Massillon it is kind of like (Ohio State). Not to the extent, but it’s a little like that. I don’t know if I’ll be ready for that. I’ll find out when I get down there I’ll find out if I’ll be playing at all. If it happens, it happens.”
Justin Zwick left Orrville, about 15 miles west of Massillon, after his sophomore season. As a freshman at Orrville, he won the Division IV state title. It was then time to leave, to go to the big time. The town of Orrville was not happy.
“There’s a lot of hard feelings around that,” Justin Zwick said. “I don’t know if my friends truly understood what I was trying to do. I’m trying to make myself a better quarterback and I don’t know if they understood that at first.”
While it has taken some time to mend wounds with old friends at Orrville, it did not take much time to adjust to Division I defenses at Massillon. In Justin Zwick’s first season at Massillon he passed for 2,460 yards, a school record. Those yards pushed Justin Zwick over 7,000 for his career, an Ohio high school record. He set that record in his junior season.
He also tossed 23 touchdown passes last year for Massillon, and while that is not a Massillon Washington High School record, he made sure to break it this year – his 2001 touchdown pass tally is at 30. He has thrown for five touchdowns in a game four times. The only other player to do that in Massillon was Mike Byelene – in 1934.
“He’s really under the microscope right now just because everybody is looking at him knowing he’s going to OSU,” said his mother Linda Zwick. “Everyone is out to get him. They want to intercept his passes and they want to take him out. He’s been under pressure since he chose to come here from Orrville, and I know it’s going to be a greater magnitude from what he has experienced, but I think he will be able to handle (OSU pressure).”
Mom and Dad agree.
“The things that he has done and the crowd and the situations he’s played before in Massillon here are really second to none in the high school setting,” William Zwick said. “It’s really an intense atmosphere here.”
Stultz has seen this before.
“I’ve seen a lot of quarterbacks (at OSU) going back to Stanley Jackson, Joe Germaine, Mark Garcia, David Priestley and Austin Moherman,” Stultz said. “Some have transferred out. There’s a lot of pressure coming in. Because he is so highly touted, it’s going to the same.”
Old Rocky Top
Most 18-year-old males receiving a video tape through the mail probably would not watch it within plain view of their parents. Then again, most 18-year-old males don’t get a video addressed from Peyton Manning, quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts.
“He’s had Peyton Manning’s films,” William Zwick said. “Peyton Manning is a very nice guy. Last year, he sent him a drill film and told him what he looks at.”
Something Peyton Manning is known for, watching hours of game film, Justin Zwick is also compulsively into. Call him a nerd, but he is 6-foot-5-inches and 220-pounds.
“On Sunday (Shepas and Justin Zwick) spent three-and-a-half hours just watching Dayton. That’s what it’s all about,” William Zwick said. “Film study is probably the most important thing for a quarterback.”
Justin Zwick would still like to pick Manning’s brain a little more and would even love to have Peyton Manning, his father and former NFL quarterback Archie Manning and his brother and current University of Mississippi quarterback Eli Manning over for dinner.
“(Peyton) Manning had to follow his dad’s footsteps going all the way. I thought maybe if he could bring his brother (Eli) along that would be good because his brother is doing the same with him,” Justin Zwick said. “Just go and see how they dealt with all the pressure of following in footsteps.”
Jared Zwick
Having an older sibling is helpful in life especially when reading your second and third progressions.
“My brother would have to be the biggest influence on me,” Justin Zwick said. “I was a ball boy when he was playing high school football, so I was always around, hanging with his friends and throwing the ball. Ever since I could catch his passes I was throwing with him. That started me o
ff.”
When Justin Zwick’s brother Jared, an OSU dental student, played high school football, Justin was the ball boy. When Jared Zwick’s team made it to the 1994 State Championship game, Justin was on the sideline, getting an early taste of what big-time Ohio high school football was all about.
“I think that helped him work harder all the way through, and he did,” William Zwick said. “He has worked hard in the sports he played, in the weight room, in the summers and at home doing board drills. And it’s sort of paying off.”
In a big way.
Justin Zwick’s brother played football in college at Youngstown State, under OSU coach Jim Tressel.
Tressel
If John Cooper was still coaching at OSU, would Justin Zwick still be verbally committed to the Buckeyes?
Who knows?
Justin Zwick doesn’t.
“I had a chance to get to know him (Tressel) under the four years my brother played for him,” Justin Zwick said. “I was working with my brother, I was up there throwing, lifting, things like that. I got to see how coach Tressel ran a program. I was around him quite a bit. So I think that had a lot to do with my commitment last spring. Just knowing the class act he is.”
Jared Zwick has known that for a while.
“You can see the type of kids he’s recruiting right now. This class they have 16 commitments. All pretty decent students. 3.0, 3.5 (grade point average) kids,” Jared Zwick said. “In years to come it’s going to be an exciting time in Columbus.”
William Zwick said 30 or 40 schools were after his son, dangling a full-ride scholarship to play quarterback. Some even big passing schools like Florida. Let’s not forget Justin Zwick likes to throw the ball. William Zwick said when Cooper was fired, the people Tressel brought in with quarterbacks/receivers coach Joe Daniels and Jim Bollman, the offensive coordinator, solidified his son’s decision.
“Chris Spielman even said that when we were down for practice. He came up and said ‘You know it used to be you would have to run, to set up the pass, now you have to pass to set up the run’, ” William Zwick said. “That is what happened (to OSU against Wisconsin this year). They’re daring people to throw the ball.
“We’ve known (Tressel) for five or six years now at Youngstown,” William Zwick said. “We know all his children. They associate with our kids, and it’s a great experience now, especially when we get to see him. It was nice because he was Jared’s position coach and we got to know him better that way and Jared did also.”
Telemarketer
Since verbally committing to OSU, Justin Zwick has become a salesman for Tressel and his 2002 recruiting campaign.
“I’ve gotten to know all of the guys that are in my class that have committed already,” Justin Zwick said. “I’ve been in contact with them, I’ve talked with them. It’s a big group of guys that are coming in so far, and we’re working on a couple others and hopefully we can get a couple others.
“During the season I try to lay off a little bit because I don’t want to bug the guys,” Justin Zwick said. “During the summer I would call them and introduce myself and start a relationship with them. They’re going to be a teammate of mine, and I figure why not get a relationship going, and I think they like that too, because I’m showing interest in them.”
Careless Whisper
Ohio State President William “Brit” Kirwan violated a minor NCAA violation when speaking about Justin Zwick joining the Buckeyes at a recent Hall of Fame luncheon in Canton, Ohio, something Kirwan should not have done until February.
There is reason to be excited about a quarterback drilling a 15-yard out pattern, hitting a running back in stride in the flat, looking off his second progression and staying cool in the pocket. There is definitely reason for excitement for Buckeye fans. Not to mention in Massillon.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Justin Zwick said. “It’s neat to walk down while I’m down at the games (at OSU) and see all the people. You think about next year, I could be down here playing. It’s a neat situation.”
“I’ll probably cry,” Linda Zwick said. “You get goose bumps even when you’re down there now on the field and the team comes out. It’s an awesome feeling as a parent. You can’t help but be proud.”
