Recently, I asked Terrelle Pryor if he had the freedom to audible at the line of scrimmage if he saw something he didn’t like.

And the answer was a bit surprising for someone nearing the end of his second season as a collegiate starting quarterback.

“No, not yet,” Pryor said. “I’m still trying to get our offense down a lot more and just try and progress.”

Now, of course Pryor is not going to be like Peyton Manning at the line of scrimmage barking out all kinds of signals and basically being the de-facto offensive coordinator. I’m not suggesting that he should resemble anything like that.

But an occasional audible when OSU has a run play called and the other team is obviously stacking the box, for example, wouldn’t seem to be a bad idea.

At this stage of his development, Pryor is not ready to make wholesale changes at the line of scrimmage. His head is already spinning enough. But a simple check to a different play is something he should be able to do as a sophomore entering his 19^th career start (it would be his 20th, except Todd Boeckman technically started the Fiesta Bowl last season).

“There’s not a bunch of quarterbacks that have free realm to go up there and say, ‘I’m going to go from this play to any play I want,’” OSU quarterbacks coach Nick Siciliano said. “So, there are certain situations, certain games – maybe this one, maybe not – that he’s able to look at the defense and say, ‘Alright, we really better not do this; we’ve got this play instead.’ So, that happens. But I’m not sure if we are going to do that this week or not.”

Troy Smith did not have the freedom to call audibles early in his career. However, during his junior and senior seasons, he would usually be given two plays – a run and a pass – and could check to one or the other at the line.

Siciliano was asked if there is anything in place like that for Pryor.

“That occasionally happens, yes,” he said. “Whether it was Troy or Todd or Craig Krenzel or Terrelle, there’s going to be times and games and years that you’re going to give the quarterback a chance to do that. But there are going to be weeks when maybe you don’t need to do that. It might not be pertinent enough. You might know what you’re getting and you don’t need to check it.”

So, will it happen this week against Penn State? Probably not. If the Buckeyes weren’t comfortable giving Pryor the freedom to call audibles against other Big Ten teams, they certainly aren’t going to start doing it against a very good Nittany Lion defense.

However, at some point in Pryor’s development, it needs to happen. You can’t be a top college quarterback and not have the ability to switch plays at the line of scrimmage. Calling audibles is part of being a quarterback, even at the college level.

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