C. J. Stroud accused of ghosting Manning Passing Academy as 2023 NFL Draft inches closer

As the 2023 NFL Draft looms, a potentially alarming story has emerged about one of its most highly touted prospects.

For weeks, Ohio State Buckeyes quarterback C.J. Stroud has been considered a consensus top-three pick, given the statistics he amassed in his two years there. However, he may have incurred a potential character issue by failing to show up at a prestigious football camp, according to analyst Brady Quinn.

Speaking on CBS Sports' 'Pick Six Podcast', Quinn claimed that Stroud had committed to the Manning Passing Academy, a football camp run by the namesake brothers Peyton, Eli, and Cooper:

“I’ve been told that he committed to it the night before, then just kind of ghosted them, didn’t show up. That’s football royalty, and when you do that, that’s gonna kind of set off some alarms for people, like, ‘Hey man, that’s not how you conduct yourself—especially around the Manning family, or just in general—if you’re gonna be a franchise quarterback.’”

However, just hours later, former Super Bowl-winning safety and current ESPN host Ryan Clark dismissed the rumors, saying that Stroud instead chose to practice with his college teammates:

Is C.J. Stroud a hard player to coach?

Allegedly missing a football camp after committing to it is not the only problem C.J. Stroud is said to have. Last week, he reportedly posted a low score in the S2 test, while former NFL executive Michael Lombardi claimed that he was not confident that Stroud would go second overall, citing coaching issues:

"C.J. Stroud's an interesting guy. When you talk to people in the league, they'll tell you C.J. Stroud is not — this is not a knock, this is just a conversation — not an easy guy to coach. I think the word that people use is he's very not believing in what you're saying, and so he's a little bit challenging to coach. So it's not like he comes in and embraces it, he's got a little bit of a different style to him."

However, the Houston Texans are still adamant that they have their man. Speaking on 'Locked on Texans', Jay Stephens, host of 'Locked on Buckeyes', said he had never heard of any such issues that could affect Stroud's draft stock:

"I never heard or thought anything about Stroud being a hard person to coach. I never heard or thought that Stroud wasn't a good young man. I never once thought that at all. I don't know why people do this...they are finding something that I don't think [exists]."