The Ohio State Buckeyes are set to start their journey as the defending National Champions heading into the 2025 college football season. But going into this offseason, there are far more pressing questions pertaining to the quarterback position than the program had last year.
Will Howard earned the starting quarterback position pretty early into spring camp last year, which would of course end up working out in a major way both for Howard individually and for Ohio State as a team.
Now that Howard is moving on to the NFL level with the Pittsburgh Steelers, they need to find the man who will lead their offense heading into 2025. And according to head coach Ryan Day, that decision will come down to one of two quarterbacks on their roster.
During a press conference on Tuesday, Day called the battle for the starting quarterback spot a “two-horse race” between Lincoln Kineholz and Julian Sayin, who transferred into the program from Alabama last August.
The other quarterback on the roster, five-star quarterback recruit Tavien St. Clair, has seemingly been taken out of the running to be the starter for the time being, with Day claiming that he “needs to play more football” despite having all of the talent to start one day in his eyes.
Day called it a “two-horse race” for Ohio State’s starting quarterback job coming out of spring practice. He liked what he saw from Lincoln Kineholz and Julian Sayin and said you can see the ability of Tavien St. Clair, but he just needs to play more football.
— Patrick Murphy (@_Pat_Murphy) April 29, 2025
Both Kineholz and Sayin lack high-level experience as a starting quarterback. So no matter who ends up earling the starting job in Columbus, the Buckeyes may be in for a bit of an adjustment period after losing Will Howard.
Still, the Buckeyes do have some elite talent on the offensive side of the ball remaining from last year. Most notably, Jeremiah Smith, who profiles to be a top-five pick in the NFL Draft whenever he opts to declare, should provide a security blanket for whatever quarterback is named the starter.
