Why Will Howard might not be a lock as Ohio State's QB1 in 2024

It was a busy offseason in the Transfer Portal for head coach Ryan Day and the Ohio State Buckeyes. That included bringing in Will Howard to, presumably, become Ohio State’s starting quarterback for the 2024 season.

Despite that, while making an appearance on Andy Staples On3, Jesse Simonton suggested that Howard might not be a lock to be QB1 at Ohio State through the 2024 season.

“I think the funny thing is, Will Howard’s a guy where you kind of peak at his early Heisman odds, he’s way up there,” Jesse Simonton said. “He’s done some nice things at Kansas State. He led them to a Big 12 Championship Game and win over TCU just two years ago. The funny thing is, Andy, I think you could absolutely make a case and argument that by the end of the season, he may not even be Ohio State’s starter.”

One of the main reasons why Simonton thinks Will Howard may not be a lock as the team’s starter by the end of the 2024 season comes down to depth behind him, where the team has several young and highly-touted quarterbacks behind him.

“That quarterback room is super loaded. You bring in Julian Sayin. You’ve got another five-star in Air Noland. You still have [Lincoln] Kienholz and Devin Brown,” Simonton said. “I don’t think all those guys are gonna be around post-spring… but there’s a case that, hey, if Howard’s not getting it done because last year I think you could make the case that Kyle McCord was kind of what was holding the Buckeyes back. So, if he’s not getting it done, he can be a new face in a new place where he’s maybe ceding the ball or his starting hand to someone else.”

Will Howard has, by far, the most experience of any quarterback in the room for Ohio State with 34 games played over four seasons. Julian Sayin and Air Noland, meanwhile, are both top five quarterbacks in the 2024 cycle, according to the On3 Industry Ranking. For his part, Devin Brown was a five-star recruit in the 2022 cycle.

Interestingly, Ohio State isn’t the only school where Simonton thinks this situation has a chance of playing out, pointing to one of the new Big Ten schools in Oregon.

“I think that’s the case in a number of different places. I don’t think that’s what’s gonna happen with Dillon Gabriel at Oregon, but it could. They also signed Dante Moore as a little insurance there,” Simonton said. “So, it’s at least on the table, which again, makes this whole thing fascinating because we’re talking about two of the four best teams in the country, certainly so when we’re talking about FanDuel odds. You mentioned that Oregon is 10.5, there’s four teams in the country that have that, it’s Georgia, Texas, Oregon, and Ohio State.”