At Rider High School in Wichita Falls, Texas, there was a standing rule regarding the halftime locker room during the era when J.T. Barrett was the quarterback.
“It was ‘Nobody talks but J.T.,’ ” former coach Jim Garfield recalled.
While the coaches huddled in an adjacent area discussing adjustments, Barrett had the floor with his teammates. Much as he commands the room at times now with Ohio State, Barrett had carte blanche at Rider to speak his mind, Garfield said, because the coach had confidence Barrett’s message would come from his football savvy mind and from his competitive soul, not from his ego.