Wade Bartholomew felt anticipation build around the halls of Lewis Center (Ohio) Olentangy High over the past week: former Braves quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer is starting at The Horseshoe on Saturday.
“Hey, I’ve got tickets to go to the game because Ethan.”
“Hey, we’re going over because of Ethan.”
“Ah man, I’m going to be glued to the TV because of Ethan.”
Teachers who wouldn’t normally watch a college football game but had Grunkemeyer as a student will be tuned in to FOX at noon. The enthusiasm has spread through the school district in the Columbus suburbs, too. Bartholomew, Olentangy’s fourth-year coach, has heard from local rivals at Olentangy Orange and Olentangy Liberty.
“There’s people … that are super excited to see a hometown kid coming to Ohio State and throwing it around because they watched him grow up for four or five years around here throwing it,” Bartholomew told Lions247 by phone Wednesday evening. “There’s a buzz. There’s definitely electricity.”
That “hometown kid” won’t be suiting up in the scarlet and gray for the No. 1 Buckeyes, though. Instead, Grunkemeyer will walk into Ohio Stadium as the Penn State starting quarterback.
But Grunkemeyer will have supporters among the more than 102,000 fans in the stands Saturday. Many of them watched as he developed from a lightly recruited junior with regional MAC offers to a Top247 prospect with an arm coveted by college coaches. Bartholomew will be there with his wife and daughters. Plenty of other members of the Olentangy community will be there, too — with split loyalties.
“It’s super excitement,” Bartholomew said. “I don’t know how many people have told me, ‘Ah man, I hope Ethan throws for 400 yards, but the Buckeyes win by touchdown.'”
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Like most boys in the Columbus area, Grunkemeyer grew up as an Ohio State fan. His mother, Megan McCabe, played basketball for the Buckeyes in the late 1990s. It was “definitely a dream” to play at The Horseshoe about half-hour south. He was in the stands there in 2017 when Saquon Barkley took back the opening kickoff to begin an epic 39-38 Buckeyes victory over the Nittany Lions.
Grunkemeyer, though, was a late bloomer at Olentangy. Bartholomew arrived before Grunkemeyer’s junior season in 2022 and revamped the Braves offense. Everybody knew the under-the-radar passer had the arm talent, Bartholomew said, but he needed a year to completely get comfortable in the offense.
By the time the 2022 season was over, Miami (Ohio) was the only school reported to have offered Grunkemeyer a scholarship. At the same time, Ohio State had five-star Dylan Raiola, who is now in his second season starting at Nebraska, committed for seven months.
“He was still a pretty good quarterback, but they didn’t just quite see that, like, ‘it’ factor as a junior, right?” Bartholomew said. “So he didn’t get a ton of offers as a junior. He didn’t get a ton of things going into his junior year, and he went all over the country in the summer trying to find somebody to fall in love with him.”
Some college coaches did see enough during Grunkemeyer’s junior season to come by Olentangy to see him throw. Grunkemeyer developed the mental side of his game in the Braves playbook, but Bartholomew and Grunkemeyer’s private quarterback coach, Brad Maendler, helped the quarterback alter his stride so it was the same whether he was throwing deep or throwing short.
“He stood in a gym and just absolutely just rocked it in the gym in the winter, and then same thing in the spring,” Bartholomew said. “And before you know it, it’s just like this huge hoopla of, ‘Oh my God, there’s a kid in the Olentangy area that can just absolutely sling it.’ And so everybody was coming to the door.”
First, the MAC came calling, along with an assortment of FCS programs. In April 2023, things changed. Grunkemeyer got his first Power Four offers from Northwestern, Indiana, Cincinnati, Minnesota, Penn State and Virginia.
Ohio State, though, never pulled the trigger on an offer. And that same April, the Buckeyes received the pledge of top-65 prospect Air Noland.
“They recruited me,” Grunkemeyer said. “I took a couple visits down there. They never ended up offering me. But I had a pretty good relationship. Talked to their quarterback coach a couple times and the OC. I had good visits down there, but it never ended up being anything too crazy.”
Bartholomew said Ohio State did its “due diligence” on Grunkemeyer because “you can’t have a kid in your backyard leave, that kind of thing.” That summer, Grunkemeyer impressed at a 7-on-7 camp with Olentangy on the Ohio State campus, but by that time, he was headed elsewhere.
“I think ultimately, they were happy with what they had, and so what Ethan did was Ethan just turned his eye on who’s next,” Bartholomew said. “I don’t think it ever really bothered him more than I think he felt like he deserved a little bit deeper look than what maybe they gave him when he finally started to turn the table.”
In May 2023, Grunkemeyer announced his commitment to Penn State the week after taking an unofficial visit to State College.
“He was super excited about his opportunities and just ready to go prove to the world that he was good enough to play here,” Bartholomew said.
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Grunkemeyer’s ascension to the starting quarterback role was sudden. Late in the fourth quarter of the loss to Northwestern on Oct. 11, starter Drew Allar suffered a season-ending injury — reported to be a broken ankle — on a third-down scramble. Suddenly, it was Grunkemeyer’s team. His teammates immediately expressed their confidence in him, but there were challenges ahead. That was only magnified the next day when coach James Franklin was fired.
Grunkemeyer’s first start came against Iowa at Kinnick Stadium at night, a daunting setting and environment for any quarterback, much less one as green as Grunkemeyer. But Penn State committed no pre-snap penalties. Grunkemeyer said his command at the line of scrimmage was something he was most proud of from that game. Interim coach Terry Smith praised that, too.
Grunkemeyer was unfazed in the 25-24 loss to the Hawkeyes. Bartholomew wasn’t surprised to see that as he watched the game from Ohio.
“He was always that way, no matter the moment,” Bartholomew said. “Here in high school, he was always just a competitor, and he never got too high, never got too low. A mistake was a mistake, and that’s it. It wasn’t the end all, be all. He just kind of learned from it. He came and talked to me about it, and he made the adjustments he needed.”
As the quarterback, it goes beyond simply what Grunkemeyer does. It’s how he does it, too. Allar liked to use the comparison of a thermostat and a thermometer. The thermometer takes the temperature. The thermostat sets it. The Penn State quarterbacks need to be the latter.
“He’s just stepping into that QB1 role,” wide receiver Trebor Peña said earlier this week. “He’s kind of stepping out of his comfort zone. He’s trying to be more of a leader and taking charge and telling guys what he sees or what he wants. Everybody is supporting him.”
Sixth-year senior and two-time team captain Nick Dawkins displayed the importance of Grunkemeyer to the team at Iowa. As Penn State gathered on the field in pregame warmups for a full team huddle, Dawkins nudged Grunkemeyer into the middle of the circle to break down the team.
Penn State needed its quarterback to set the tone.
“Prior to being thrusted into the leadership role which he is, Ethan’s a kid that’s just going to go about his business and show to everybody that he’s 100% accountable for him and doing his job,” Bartholomew said.
“But as soon as you thrust him into that role, he’s an intense guy. He’s gonna make sure that everybody knows, like, we’re here to get our s— together. We’re here to do the right thing.
“I think as he gets more comfortable and comfortable with the team and the team starts to be more comfortable giving him that platform, I think what they’re gonna see from him is he’s gonna challenge them every day to become great. And he’s not gonna do it in a mean manner, but he’s going to do it in a, ‘Hey, I’m very serious about where this is taking me and where it’s taking us, and either you’re on board or you’re not.'”
Penn State will need to be a buttoned-up operation against top-ranked Ohio State on Saturday. The Buckeyes are No. 1 in scoring defense, No. 1 in total defense, No. 3 in passing defense and No. 8 in rushing defense.
Any offensive success will stem from Grunkemeyer navigating the unit through a hostile environment against an elite opponent, and he’ll also be charged with keeping his team on track when things get dicey.
“I think the Penn State people and Penn State teammates are going to start to see that the more that he gets an opportunity to be put into that leadership role, they better be ready because he’s going to [be] Tom Brady-esque [with] them on the fact that they’re going to show up and get their s— right every single day,” Bartholomew said.
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On Tuesday morning, Grunkemeyer said he was still working through his ticket requests, and he wasn’t exactly sure how many he had. He could feel some of the anticipation in his return. He was anticipating it, too.
“I think that just kind of going back into that environment that I grew up in is definitely motivating,” Grunkemeyer said. “But I’d say at the end of the day, football is football, and just gotta go put the ball down and play.”
Grunkemeyer didn’t shy away from or downplay his Ohio State ties or his fandom growing up. He watched the Buckeyes every Saturday and lived among a rabid fan base. He called playing in Columbus some version of a “dream” three times during his Zoom call with reporters Tuesday.
“It’s definitely a special moment for him. I know I had that opportunity last year when I went back to Wisconsin, and so it definitely means a little more for guys going back to their state where they were at,” said offensive lineman Nolan Rucci, who is in his second season with the Nittany Lions after playing for the Badgers for three years. “I feel really confident about him, and I think the rest of the guys do, too.”
But Grunkemeyer is also business-like. As Bartholomew laid out, Grunkemeyer becomes “dead serious” when it’s time to focus, and Saturday will be no different.
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Smith has seen that in recent weeks, too.
“Even in practice during the bye week, you can just see his management of the offense, decision-making,” Smith said during the Penn State Coaches Show on Thursday. “He looks more poised. He’s making better checks. He has more rhyme or reason to what he’s doing now, and you can visibly see it. He’s just more comfortable, and the guys around him feel better and better around him, and he’s in total control.”
Grunkemeyer’s starting career at Penn State has been brief, and the degree of difficulty has only increased from Iowa two weeks ago to Ohio State on Saturday. But the Nittany Lions coaches and players have faith in their young signal-caller who was pushed into this role
Those who have known Grunkemeyer since before his Penn State days do, too, and they know he’s ready to return home.
“Now, I know he’s looking at it as he gets to go to The Shoe,” Bartholomew said. “It’s a tremendous opportunity. It’s a dream of a lifetime to come in and do it, but I know for a fact he’s laying in bed tonight going, ‘God, I can’t wait to just sling it against these guys.'”
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Daniel Gallen covers Penn State for Lions247 and 247Sports. He can be reached at daniel.gallen@cbsinteractive.com. Follow Daniel on X at @danieljtgallen, Instagram at @bydanieljtgallen and Bluesky at @danieljtgallen.bsky.social.
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