My bad. Cardale was a sophmore....
I went back and looked at that tOSU National Championship team and there are a lot of very interesting comparisons, actually differences, that jump out.
Cardale was the tOSU 3rd string QB all season long until the 2 QBs ahead of him went down with injury and he had to start the last 3 games. He never made any All American or All Big Ten teams during his college career, was drafted in the 4th round by Buffalo were he only played in one game due to injuries to the QBs ahead of him, was put on waivers by the Bills, picked up by the Chargers where he was the 3rd string QB and never played. He is expected to be cut by the Chargers prior to the draft to make room for drafting a QB in the mid rounds in this draft. Not terrible but certainly not a great QB.
Now what about the guys who played around him?
The tOSU starting SR TE and both WRs were drafted in 2015 and are starters in the NFL.
The starting OL was made up of Jrs and Sophs consisting of three 4 Stars and two 5 Stars. They rotated in 3 OLs from the 2nd string during every game in 2014 who were high 4 Star prospects out of HS. All 8 of them were Top 100 prospects coming out of HS. All of them made either the 1st, 2nd or Honorable Mention All Big Ten at least one time in their careers. 5 of those 8 made 1st, 2nd or Honorable mention All American. Taylor Decker was a consensus All American and a 1st round pick. All of them were drafted. 7 of the 8 became starters in the NFL. 7 of the 8 are still on NFL teams. That's pretty incredible even for tOSU.
Oh. Last but certainly not least, starting behind that OL, Cardale benefited from this RB with the strange name...Ezekiel Elliott. In those three games that Cardale started in 2014, "Zeke" ran all over the 3rd ranked Wisconsin Badgers' run defense for 220 yards on just 20 carries for 2 TDs. In the first play-off game against Bama's #1 defense against the run and # 2 defense overall, Zeke ran for 230 yards again on just 20 carries. In the national Championship game against Oregon, Zeke ran for 246 yards and 4 TDs. In all three of those games that Cardale started, Zeke was named the Player of the Game. Doesn't appear to be a fluke either since Zeke became the Big Ten Offensive Player of the year in 2015 while Cardale sat a lot on the bench, Zeke was named to All American teams, was 8th in Heisman voting, was drafted by the Cowboys as the 4th overall pick, led the NFL in rushing as a rookie, and is a Pro Bowl pick for the 2nd year in a row.
FWIW - tOSU defense in 2014 was 4th in the Nation and tOSU special teams were in the top 7 of every category.