Ohio
Kyle McCord calls transfer from Ohio State to Syracuse ‘a business decision.’ Here’s why
According to Kyle McCord, his decision to transfer from Ohio State to Syracuse was strictly business.
“At the end of the day, the top level of college football and then especially onto the pros, it’s a business,” McCord said on “The QB Room” podcast. “At the end of the day, Ohio State had to make a business decision they felt like was best for them. And I had to do the same thing.”
McCord entered the transfer portal after leading Ohio State to an 11-1 record, finishing the 2023 regular season with a loss to Michigan: the program’s third-straight loss to its rival.
Kyle McCord’s decision to leave Ohio State
Sources told The Dispatch in December McCord’s decision to leave was his, and that he would have been the front-runner to start for the Buckeyes in 2024. McCord instead wanted Ryan Day’s assurance that he would be the starter, which the Ohio State coach could not give. Another factor to McCord’s decision was name, image and likeness compensation.
In his one season as Ohio State’s starting quarterback, McCord finished with 3,170 passing yards, 24 touchdowns and six interceptions, completing 65.8% of his 348 pass attempts.
McCord said after his transfer portal announcement Dec. 4, he “kept the reasons close, kind of in my inner circle” as to why he left Ohio State.
“I’ve had news outlets hit me up,” McCord said. “Like i had a news outlet from Columbus that hit me up to do a story, and I didn’t answer it. Hit my family up to do a story, they didn’t answer it. Hit people up in my circle (to) do a story, nobody answered. And then the next day, you go online and they have an article published of ‘the five reasons I left.’ And you read them and it’s a bunch of B.S. They are just pulling at strings at that point. The narrative, people read that and they think it’s true, so they believe it, start positing it and it just kind of snowballs. You don’t really speak up about it. It is what it is. I think the truth will always reveal itself.”
McCord said he learned a lot from former Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud, who McCord said got a lot of criticism during his time in Columbus, but became the No. 2 overall pick of the 2024 NFL draft and is now having “one of the best rookie seasons of all time.”
“He said, ‘Regardless if you are good, bad or indifferent, people are going to have something to say,’” McCord said of Stroud. “So this year, I think I have done a good job of just blocking it all out and understanding it’s part of the position, especially at a school like that. There’s going to be a lot of noise. A lot of the time, you just kind of let it roll off your back, and, like I said, I think the truth will work out.”
After McCord found his future at Ohio State “just wan’t meant to be for next year,” he said he was confident that he would find a home entering the transfer portal.
At Syracuse, McCord said he connected with coach Fran Brown, who he had known since middle school, and a staff filled with connections he had previously made.
McCord called the transfer portal “free agency” and “crazy within itself,” and that the NCAA is “in over its head” with NIL, comparing it to “a cap in football.”
But in Syracuse, McCord said he found a “good home” with a “realistic chance” to compete for the 12-team College Football Playoff.
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cgay@dispatch.com
Out of prison, Indiana’s caviar king back on Ohio River to find fishing holes taken
David Cox, of English, Indiana, says once he began setting his nets again after a two-year prison sentence and a three-year ban on commercial fishing, all of his once-secret spots were taken.
Can you eat fish from the Ohio River?
In 1975, future presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, then governor of Massachusetts, bet 20 pounds of New England cod that the Red Sox would defeat the Reds in the World Series. If things went south for Boston, Ohio governor James Rhodes promised to send Dukakis 10 pounds of Lake Erie perch and 10 pounds of Ohio River catfish. The Reds ended up winning and the cod was sent to the Convalescent Home for Children, in Cincinnati.
At the time, people were still eating catfish from the Ohio without too much concern. The fish were also served at several restaurants along the river.
There were warnings in 1977
But two years later, in 1977, The Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission released the results of a study of contaminants found in the tissues of Ohio River fish. They warned anglers in cities such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, Wheeling and Gallipolis that man-made chemicals known as PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, had been discovered in the river fish. Later, high concentrations of mercury were discovered in the fish, too.
Thanks to the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the environmental regulations that followed, the river is now cleaner than it was in the seventies. And it’s still teeming with a variety of fish, including catfish, striped bass, drum and black bass, among other species.
But even though PCBs were banned by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1979, they are still found in fish, since they remain in the sediment in the bottom of the river. “Organisms live in the sediment and fish feed on them,” Rich Cogen, the executive director of the Ohio River Foundation told The Enquirer. Mercury is also a big problem, according to Cogen.
So the question is: Can you eat fish caught in the Ohio River?
The short answer is yes. But it depends on what species you are eating and where along the river you caught it.
There are also very strict limitations on how frequently you should eat them, according to the web site for the Ohio Sport Fish Consumption Advisory, part of the Ohio Department of Health.
In areas of the river between the Belleville Lock, located 204 miles downstream from the river’s origins in Pittsburgh, to the Indiana border, the advisory agency currently recommends consuming Ohio River fish no more than once a month max. That area includes Adams, Brown, Clermont, Gallia, Hamilton, Lawrence, Meigs and Scioto counties.
Here’s where to check
Recommendations change throughout the year, but you can keep up by visiting the Ohio Department of Health’s Sport Fish Consumption Advisory page, which provides updated information on when certain fish, usually bottom feeders such as carp, are deemed too dangerous to eat at all.
Here’s who should take a pass on Ohio River fish
The agency also warns that people who are more likely to have health effects from eating contaminated fish, includingchildren younger than 15 years old, pregnant women and women who are planning to become pregnant to avoid Ohio River fish altogether.
Just because you have to limit the amount of fish you eat, doesn’t mean the river is a bad place for fishing, as long as you limit your intake or do catch-and-release fishing. Just make sure you have a proper fishing license before casting your line.
Have a question for Just Askin’? Email us.
The Just Askin’ series aims to answer the questions that no one seems to have an answer for, except maybe Google.
Do you have a question you want answered? Send it to us at justaskin@enquirer.com, ideally with Just Askin’ in the subject line.
It isn’t over until it’s over. That’s the case for both the UCLA Bruins football program recruiting and for quarterback Brady Edmunds. Edmunds is currently committed to head to Ohio State but he took a visit from UCLA offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy earlier this week.
Kennedy met Edmunds on Thursday despite the fact that the quarterback has been committed to the Buckeyes since December of 2024 but could the UCLA Bruins be making a run at flipping the quarterback?
Edmunds has only had an official visit with Ohio State but could UCLA heave a heat check on the 6’5” quarterback? New UCLA head coach Bob Chesney is off to an unbelievable start to his recruiting with the Bruins and flipping a recruit of Edmunds’ caliber would be his most impressive move yet.
247 Sports has Edmunds as the No. 16 quarterback in the class, which would give UCLA a clear predecessor for Nico Iamaleava whenever the Bruins current starting quarterback decides to head to the professional level.
It’d be a full circle moment for the Bruins, as Edmunds was originally recruited to Ohio State by former UCLA head coach Chip Kelly, who bailed on UCLA to go run the Buckeyes offense. Ohio State is a great spot for a developing quarterback, as the Buckeyes produce tons of NFL talent, especially at the wide receiver position, which would help Edmunds put up some gaudy numbers in Columbus.
Chesney and the Bruins have geography on their side, Edmunds attends Huntington Beach High School in Southern California, which could potentially become a factor if Edmunds views UCLA as a program on the rise that’d be much closer to his friends and family than out in Ohio.
Time will tell if Kennedy’s visit will make a difference but UCLA’s recruiting has made waves in the first offseason under Chesney and the new regime.
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