Ohio State Quarterback Battle A ‘Two-Horse Race’

There was no surprise following spring practice when Ohio State head coach Ryan Day declined to name a starting quarterback. It was not expected given the fact that there were three inexperienced quarterbacks vying for the role.

Redshirt freshman Julian Sayin opened spring as the favorite from those on the outside. Redshirt sophomore Lincoln Kienholz was the more experienced player, but he didn’t throw a single pass last season. Sayin passed Kienholz last year on the depth chart, finishing the season as the Buckeyes’ No. 3 quarterback behind veterans Will Howard and Devin Brown.

True freshman Tavien St. Clair has the five-star pedigree, and while he received the same number of snaps as Kienholz and Sayin in the spring, there were never any realistic expectations for him to win the job this early. That’s never been a characteristic or need for a Ryan Day quarterback room.

Despite the inexperience, the quarterbacks all got better during the spring under the tutelage of Day and quarterbacks coach Billy Fessler. They all had their good spells and bad spells, and now it’s time to make the most of what they’ve done.

“I think there has been progress made,” Day said this week. “I think the next couple months, those guys coming in here and continuing to get stronger and faster and getting on the film. Now they have cut ups that they can watch to grow from. And then, as we all know, the summer will be huge. So, I’m encouraged with what we saw coming out.”

Each of the three quarterbacks will have specific things to work on, which Day declined to get into. They’ll work through their techniques and iron out their flaws over the course of the summer. The coaches will try to help where they can but they have limitations to follow.

The understanding of the offense is also something each player will be working on. They’ll have the opportunity to watch their cut-ups from spring practice and see themselves making mistakes or progress, as opposed to watching Will Howard or CJ Stroud or any other past quarterback. When they are studying the offense, they can now see themselves and how they operated within it.

“The technical parts I won’t get into, but for for all three of them, it’s really about understanding the offense better,” Day explained. “Understanding protections, understanding the route structures, how the ball has to come out, third down, red zone, understanding the entire offense. We put a good amount in, but there’s still a lot that we haven’t put in. So we need to continue to dive into that. Ultimately, they will be evaluated on how they make the routine plays routinely. And then how they do on third down, red zone, and two minute.”

Day was asked on Tuesday if he had a front-runner in mind and he answered, “No.” The only other time in Day’s head-coaching tenure where that question would have elicited the same answer was 2023 when Devin Brown and Kyle McCord went back and forth in both spring and fall camp.

Are the Buckeyes heading for something similar this year?

“We’ll see,” Day said. “I felt like Lincoln going into the spring game was a little bit ahead of Julian. And then I thought, if you just watched the game, Julian probably performed a little bit better than Lincoln during the spring game. And here we are, you know?”

Since then, the coaches have gone through all of the film, they’ve done the grading, and both Saying and Kienholz have come out with similar marks.

“We’ll take it into the summer and we’ll let them play,” Day said. “The more you play, the more these things find a way to work themselves out. So who knows? Who knows how it’s going to shake? My guess is they’re going to need each other.”

Day is also adamant that the quarterback room is going to need St. Clair as well. It wasn’t that long ago that the Buckeyes won a national championship with a third-string quarterback, so that history will never be forgotten — or ignored.

But when the Buckeyes take the field against Texas to open the 2025 season, it will almost certainly be Julian Sayin or Lincoln Kienholz taking that first snap.

“You can see the talent with Tavien,” Day said. “He just needs more experience, needs more at bats. And the more he does that, the more he’ll he’ll be in the mix. But right now it’s a two-horse race.”

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