Asked Tuesday if there was a frontrunner to be Ohio State’s starting quarterback this season coming out of spring, Ryan Day gave a succinct one-word answer.
“No,” Day replied.
What Day said following that answer, however, proved to be far more interesting.
Although five-star redshirt freshman Julian Sayin has been widely viewed as the frontrunner to start at quarterback for Ohio State this season, Day said Tuesday that he felt Lincoln Kienholz was ahead of Sayin entering the spring game. Kienholz, who’s entering his third year at Ohio State while Sayin is going into his second, was Ohio State’s sharpest quarterback during its Student Appreciation Day scrimmage and other practices that were open to the media before the spring game.
Sayin evened up the competition, however, with his strong showing in Ohio State’s final practice of the spring at Ohio Stadium.
“I felt like Lincoln, going into the spring game, was a little bit ahead of Julian. And then I thought, if you just watch the game, Julian probably performed a little bit better than Lincoln during the spring game. And here we are,” Day said. “So going back through, watch the spring practices, look at the grades, they're very similar. So we'll take it into the summer. And we'll let them play.”
While Ohio State has three scholarship quarterbacks on its roster, also including five-star true freshman Tavien St. Clair, Day said the quarterback competition is a “two-horse race” between Kienholz and Sayin right now. He said St. Clair needs to continue to develop before he’ll be ready to compete for the starting job, though Day believes in St. Clair’s long-term potential.
“You can see the talent with Tavien. He just needs more experience, needs more at-bats. And the more he does that, the more he'll be in the mix,” Day said. “But right now it's a two-horse race.”
Even though Ohio State opens its season with a marquee game against Texas, Day says he isn’t going to rush into a decision on who will start at quarterback. While playing one of the top teams in the country in Week 1 means Ohio State needs to make a firm decision on who will lead the offense in its season opener, rather than allowing the competition to bleed into the season like it did two years ago with Kyle McCord and Devin Brown, Day says the Buckeyes must keep their focus right now on developing both quarterbacks with their championship goals in mind.
“You still have to have the focus on the long term. This is a long season. But that being said, we're going to do everything we can to make sure we have the right person in place to go win that first game, and then we'll go from there,” Day said.
While Day doesn’t know who Ohio State’s starting quarterback will be right now, he believes it will ultimately become apparent who the starter should be as the competition continues in preseason camp. And regardless of who starts against Texas, Day knows it’s important for both Sayin and Kienholz to be ready to play this season, given that the Buckeyes hope to play another 16- or 17-game season as they chase a second straight national championship.
“The more you play, the more these things find a way to work themselves out,” Day said. “So who knows how it's going to shake. My guess is they're going to need each other. We're going to need Tavien to come as well. He's got to be able to help. It's going to be a long season. We're not talking about someone like Will (Howard), who's a fifth-year senior, who's 22-23 years old, who's just been around. That was a long run he went on. So we need depth in that room.”
With 15 spring practices in the books and 25 preseason practices still to come in August, Day is optimistic about both Sayin and Kienholz based on what he’s seen so far this offseason but says both of them must continue to grow this summer.
“I think there has been progress made,” Day said. “I think the next couple of 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. I'm encouraged with what we saw coming out (of spring).”
