New Buckeyes QB Coach Billy Fessler Gets Stamp Of Approval From Will Howard

INDIANAPOLIS — New Ohio State quarterbacks coach Billy Fessler may not yet be known by many Buckeye fans, but he’s been no stranger to Ohio State.

Fessler came to Columbus last season from UCLA where Chip Kelly had just hired him to coach his quarterbacks. Kelly then decided to leave UCLA when OSU head coach Ryan Day offered him the position of offensive coordinator. Kelly then brought Fessler with him and he spent the 2024 season as an analyst.

While his title may have been “analyst,” Fessler was absolutely a quarterbacks coach for the Buckeyes last year. He may not have been THE quarterbacks coach — that title belonged to Kelly, but he was also much more than a quality control analyst.

When Kelly decided to move to the NFL after the 2024 season, Day hired Fessler to replace him as the fully-titled quarterbacks coach for the Buckeyes. Speaking to reporters at the 2025 NFL Combine on Friday, former Ohio State quarterback Will Howard was asked about Fessler’s promotion.

“If Coach Day didn’t hire him as the quarterbacks coach, I would have had a problem with it,” Howard said laughing. “But man, he taught me so much this year. He was integral to my development. He is absolutely, without a doubt, 100% the best man for that job. I think he’s going to be great for that room.”

Fessler (29) has only been in coaching since 2018. He is a former walk-on quarterback at Penn State from 2014-2017. He spent two seasons at Ohio State (2020-2021) as a graduate assistant on the offensive side of the ball. Fessler was Akron’s quarterbacks coach in 2022, then promoted to offensive coordinator in 2023. It’s been a fast rise, but one that Will Howard certainly supports. 

“He brings a human element to it,” Howard said. “He’s not that much older than us, so he’s able to relate to us on kind of a guy-to-guy level. But he’s also able to lock in. He taught me more than a lot of guys in that role ever could have.”

Fessler’s role on the coaching staff was an important one because even though Ryan Day and Chip Kelly are both known for their work with quarterbacks, they both have other responsibilities as well. Day took a step back from the quarterback position so that he could be more hands on with the rest of the team, and when Kelly was busy with his coordinator duties, Fessler was always there for Howard.

“He really was kind of the mouthpiece from Coach Day to me, Coach Kelly to me, a lot of times if they were doing anything else,” Howard said. “He was really like my personal one-on-one QB coach at times. And he was great, man. I got all the praise in the world for that dude. He helped me so much.”

A position coach’s job is to get his players ready to play. As as assistant quarterbacks coach last year, Fessler did just that with Howard, whether it was on the field or off of it.

The expectation is that he’ll continue doing that with the future of the Ohio State quarterback position as well.

“The things that we did on Thursdays, going on our walks, talking about every play in the game plan, what is each pass play, what’s it best against, what’s it good against, what do we have to manage it against, I felt so prepared going into every single game,” Howard said, “and a big part of that was because of Billy.”

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