Julian Sayin reflects on what he learned sitting behind Will Howard in 2024

Arriving as a top quarterback recruit in the country, Ohio State QB Julian Sayin got a year to sit on the sidelines as a reserve. That year of development taught him a lot to prepare him for his second season, one in which he could now be the Buckeyes’ starter.

On the debut episode of ‘Off Script’ hosted by On3’s Zak Herbstreit, Sayin joined for an interview discussing the year and half since his arrival in Columbus. That included all that he learned from QB Will Howard, with most of those lessons coming off the field from the veteran, fifth-year quarterback who helped to lead Ohio State to a national championship.

“I think I learned a lot last year,” said Sayin. “Learning from Will, just learned, you know, how to be a leader. He was a great leader for the offense and for the team and, you know, I think that was definitely something I tried to learn from him.”

“And, definitely learned a lot also from Will. You know, just learning about the preparation aspect and, you know, how much preparation goes into each week,” Sayin said.

Sayin had a good chance at playing, if not starting at points, just about anywhere in the country as a true freshman, arriving as a Five-Star+ prospect and the No. 2 QB coming out in 2024, behind only Florida’s DJ Lagway, per Rivals’ Industry Ranking. However, following his offseason transfer after his college arrival from Alabama to Ohio State, Sayin sat behind Howard, who had a career-best year with 73% completion for 4,010 yards, 35 passing touchdowns with 42 scores in total, and 10 interceptions, and the backup in Devin Brown, who has since transferred to Cal. In his four appearances, Sayin was 5-12 (41.7%) for 84 yards and a touchdown, most of which came on a 55-yard touchdown throw to Bennett Christian in their shutout win over Western Michigan.

That said, Sayin didn’t just have quality quarterbacks to learn from. He got to work with two of the better offensive minds in the sport with his head coach in Ryan Day and his offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in Chip Kelly, both of which helped him to further understand how to play quarterback now that he’s at the collegiate level.

“And then, learning from Coach Day and Coach Kelly, just more about the game, more about balling, how to go through my reads and, you know, how to look at the game as a quarterback,” said Sayin.

Sayin still has a competition to win against Lincoln Kienholz to be the Buckeyes’ QB1 in their opener. Still, assuming he does, he’ll have picked up a lot over his short career so far already to be ready to start as a redshirt sophomore.