Will Howard is one of the top reasons Ohio State slayed Notre Dame in the 2025 College Football Playoff national championship game. But he revealed on Wednesday that he was hours away from being on the opposite sideline.
On the Not Just Football podcast hosted by Howard's Pittsburgh Steelers teammate and fellow former Buckeye Cam Heyward, the quarterback stated he was ready to commit to Notre Dame before the Fighting Irish took former Duke quarterback Riley Leonard instead.
"I thought I was gonna end up at Notre Dame," Howard said. "A lot of people don't know this. Like, this was very under wraps. But they ended up signing Riley right before I was about to commit. Like, I was about to commit that day, and I call my agent and he's like, 'Sorry buddy, they just told me they took Riley.'"
Leonard's commitment blindsided Howard, and he carried that motivation through until Ohio State met Notre Dame in the title game.
"They weren't even talking about him," Howard said. "So that pissed me off. And a lot of people don't know that that had happened going into the national championship. So I remember the general manager was standing on the sideline right when we were warming up and I was staring daggers through him the whole warmup. And I'm a chip-on-my-shoulder guy."
The results in the championship game informed the Fighting Irish of the error in their decision: Howard set an Ohio State school record for completion percentage in a bowl game, going 17-of-21 (81%) for 231 yards and two touchdowns to take home Offensive MVP honors in a 34-23 Buckeye victory.
Howard's journey to Ohio State from the portal wasn't cut-and-dried after Notre Dame turned him down. He felt "lost" after Leonard's commitment, and debated declaring for the NFL draft, which he said is the route he probably would have taken if not for the Buckeyes. In the portal, USC and Miami also made heavy bids for his services. He told Heyward that Miami made him a very lucrative NIL offer.
Throughout December 2023, as Ohio State prepared to play Missouri in the Cotton Bowl, Howard was unsure of where things stood and of whether the Buckeyes truly wanted him in Columbus. Then he had a meeting with Ryan Day and Brian Hartline.
"(Day) didn't want to do anything until after the Cotton Bowl because we had a bunch of quarterbacks still on the roster," Howard said. "He wanted to make sure everyone stayed and that nobody got feeling weird about them recruiting a quarterback. ... I finally met with them down in Dallas, it was kind of a secret meeting. And it was when I was down there training, and they were down there in Dallas. And he came over and met me in my hotel, him and Coach Hartline. At that point, I wasn't really sure what the interest level was.
"He came in, sat down in an office like this and basically told me like, 'I believe you're the guy. You're the only quarterback I'm recruiting in the portal. I think you can come win us a national championship. And money, whatever, that'll come, whatever you need.' I was like, 'Wow.'"
The rest, as they say, is history.
"It all ended up working out, and here we are," Howard said. "It was the best decision I ever made in my damn life."
