If Julian Sayin wins the Heisman Trophy this season, Ohio State’s seventh game of the year against Wisconsin might be remembered as the day his Heisman campaign took off.
Despite completing a nation-leading 78.4% of his passing attempts in Ohio State’s first six games of the year, Sayin seemed to be overshadowed in the Heisman conversation for the first half of the season. He wasn’t even garnering the most conversation as a Heisman candidate on his own team, as superstar wide receiver Jeremiah Smith was the player Ohio State promoted most publicly as a candidate for the award.
After Sayin completed 36 of 42 passing attempts for 393 yards and four touchdowns in Ohio State’s 34-0 win over Wisconsin, however, it’s clear that Sayin belongs at the forefront of the Heisman conversation. And his teammates will be more than happy to help make his case.
“He's the truth. He's the Heisman winner. Ain't no question, ifs ands or doubts,” wide receiver Carnell Tate said. “Each and every week, he goes out there to prove to us why he's a Heisman winner.”
Through no fault of his own, Smith isn’t quite putting up the stats needed to win the Heisman as a wide receiver. He’s continued to be the best wide receiver in college football, catching 49 passes for 602 yards and seven touchdowns, but otherworldly numbers are typically needed for a wideout to win the Heisman, an award quarterbacks have won for 20 of the last 25 years. He’s also sharing the spotlight at his position on his own team with Tate, who’s been equally spectacular for the Buckeyes this season, catching 34 passes for 587 yards and six touchdowns.
At the position that usually produces the Heisman winner, however, Sayin has made a strong case for being the nation’s best. Seven games into the year, Sayin has now completed a mind-boggling 80% of his passes for the season (156 for 195) – by far the best completion percentage in the FBS – for 1,872 yards and 19 touchdowns with only three interceptions. His quarterback rating of 189.7 ranks as the second-best in the nation behind only Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza – one of two players who ranked ahead of Sayin in Heisman Trophy odds, along with Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson, on FanDuel and DraftKings as of Saturday night.
Early in the season, Ryan Day intentionally kept things simple for Sayin as the first-year starting quarterback got his feet wet. Against Wisconsin, however, Ohio State opened up the offense and put more on Sayin’s plate, and the redshirt freshman passed the test with flying colors.
“We really tried to put a lot on his plate today and let him push the ball down the field. I thought he made some really good decisions,” Day said in his postgame interview with CBS. “I thought there were some really good catches as well, but he's making good decisions. I thought he made a couple of really good scramble plays down the stretch as well.”
"We really tried to put a lot on his plate today and let him push the ball down the field."@OhioStateFB head coach Ryan Day with some high praise for QB Julian Sayin pic.twitter.com/RKq7RxZRh3
— CBS Sports College Football (@CBSSportsCFB) October 18, 2025
Day believes Sayin’s success starts with how well he’s prepared each week.
“I sit in those meetings with (quarterbacks coach Billy Fessler) and he and (backup quarterback Lincoln Kienholz) and the amount of information that he's processing and those guys go through in those meetings is well done. And when you see it translate to on the field, that's winning football,” Day said. “When you just can take a meeting to the field as quickly as he can and then see it and then process it, you know, is he perfect? No, there's things he's going to work to get better at, but man, he's got a bright future ahead of him.”
While there’s still a long way in the season to go, Sayin is currently on pace to shatter Ohio State’s single-season completion percentage record, set at 73% last season by Will Howard. His passer rating is also ahead of the school-record mark set by C.J. Stroud in 2021 (186.6).
“He's the truth. He's the Heisman winner. Ain't no question, ifs ands or doubts.”– Carnell Tate on Julian Sayin
His 393 passing yards against Wisconsin were the most by an Ohio State quarterback in a single game since C.J. Stroud set the school record with 573 passing yards in the 2022 Rose Bowl against Utah, and the 14th-most in any game in school history. His 85.7% completion percentage – the third time he’s hit that mark in a game this season – tied the ninth-best mark for a game in school history with a minimum of 10 completions.
Sayin has completed more than 70% of his passing attempts with at least two touchdown passes in each of Ohio State’s last six games, becoming just the fifth quarterback to hit those numbers in six consecutive games. The other four quarterbacks: 2023 Heisman finalist Bo Nix, 2020 Heisman finalist Trevor Lawrence, 2019 Heisman winner Joe Burrow and 2018 Heisman winner Kyler Murray.
"The world's biggest drum that I've been hitting is what happens in Ryan Day's offense for first-year QBs. They all thrive."@AaronTaylorCFB on Julian Sayin's career-high performance vs. Wisconsin pic.twitter.com/GHartj9UWf
— CBS Sports College Football (@CBSSportsCFB) October 18, 2025
Asked about Tate’s prediction that Sayin will win the Heisman, Ohio State’s quarterback said his focus is on simply trying to get better each week as the Buckeyes look to win every game and win another national championship.
“I'm really just playing one game at a time and trying to do my best to execute the offense and keep improving,” Sayin said. “I think our offense is all about just keep improving week by week. We're not where we want to be yet. We want to be playing our best football in December and November.”
Ohio State won’t be calling plays with the intention of winning anyone the Heisman, either. While Day admitted that the Buckeyes do sometimes look for opportunities to boost their players’ stats, he says they can’t allow that to distract from what they need to do to win each game.
“When you start to focus on those things, you can find yourself way out of whack,” Day said. “I'm not sitting here and saying that sometimes we don't do that. We're guilty of that sometimes because we love our guys and we want to do that. But we have to stay disciplined. And that's what goes back to being unselfish. And that's it. Guys have to understand the No. 1 goal is to win the game.”
Ultimately, whether the Buckeyes win every game could be the deciding factor in whether or not Sayin wins the Heisman. Stroud’s Heisman campaigns in 2021 and 2022 were derailed by losses to Michigan to end the regular season, and another loss in The Game could prevent Sayin from lifting the stiff-arm trophy, too. Conversely, if Sayin can lead the Buckeyes to an undefeated regular season, the Big Ten Championship Game could be his opportunity to win the Heisman, potentially in a head-to-head duel with current Heisman favorite Mendoza and the also-unbeaten Indiana Hoosiers.
But while there are still seven weeks to go before the Heisman race will be decided, what Saturday’s performance at Wisconsin made clear is Sayin must be included in that conversation right now. And it’s very possible Sayin could become the first Buckeye to win the award since Troy Smith 19 years ago if he continues to play as well as he has so far.
