Ryan Day is confident in Julian Sayin’s ability to lead Ohio State to a national championship in 2026.
After Sayin and Ohio State’s entire offense struggled in the Buckeyes’ postseason losses to Indiana and Miami this past season, there’s been plenty of discourse about Ohio State’s starting quarterback to start the 2026 offseason. Even though Sayin was a Heisman Trophy finalist in his first year as a starter and led the entire FBS with a 77% completion rate – the third-best completion percentage in FBS history – there are some lingering questions about his ability to make plays with his legs and some of the plays he missed that he could have made, particularly over the middle of the field, in the postseason.
Day, however, expressed nothing but full confidence in Sayin while talking about Ohio State’s quarterbacks in an offseason episode of The Ryan Day Show on Friday.
“We feel like we have the best quarterback coming back in college football next year,” Day said of Sayin.
| Stat | Total | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Completion % | 77.0 | 1st (best among all FBS QBs in 2025) |
| Passer Rating | 177.5 | 1st |
| Yards Per Attempt | 9.24 | 4th |
| Yards Per Game | 257.9 | 13th* |
| Touchdown Passes | 32 | 3rd |
|
*Does not include Joey Aguilar and Trinidad Chambliss, who are suing the NCAA for an additional year of eligibility |
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There are plenty of statistics and accolades to back up Day’s claim. In addition to leading the FBS in completion percentage, Sayin also had the best passer rating (177.5) in 2025 among quarterbacks who will still be playing college football in 2026. He had the third-most touchdown passes among quarterbacks still playing college football behind Drew Mestemaker (who transferred from North Texas to Oklahoma State this offseason) and Darian Mensah (who transferred from Duke to Miami), while he had the fourth-most passing yards per attempt among returning QBs behind Mestemaker, Notre Dame’s CJ Carr and Byrum Brown, who transferred to Auburn after playing last season at USF.
“We feel like we have the best quarterback coming back in college football next year.”– Ryan Day on Julian Sayin
Sayin is also the only one of last year’s Heisman Trophy finalists who’s still playing college football. In fact, he was the only underclassman to be a Heisman finalist in the last three years, which gives Day good reason to believe the best is yet to come for Sayin, who will be a redshirt sophomore in 2026.
“One of the youngest guys to get to New York City, I think, in a while. Most of the guys who've been going there are older guys,” Day said. “So we’re all excited about this year for him and taking the next step, even as a leader and all the different things. But obviously a great first year for him.”
Unquestionably, there are still areas where Sayin needs to improve to be a championship-caliber quarterback in 2026. He was well aware of that from the moment Ohio State’s season ended with its 24-14 loss to Miami in the College Football Playoff quarterfinal at the Cotton Bowl on Dec. 31.
“It starts with me, and we’ve got to be better on offense as an execution standpoint,” Sayin said after the game. “It starts with me, so we’ve got to be better and put up more points than 14.”
That said, some growing pains were always to be expected for Sayin – even if most of them didn’t show themselves until the biggest games of the year. After all, Sayin attempted just 12 passes as Ohio State’s third-string quarterback as a true freshman in 2024, so Day expects Sayin to learn from where he made mistakes as a first-year starter and be even better as a second-year starter.
“This is somebody who hasn't played a lot of football. It's his first year playing, and he competes. He works at it in the meeting room. What he does in terms of his preparation, what we put on his plate and getting us in and out of plays, protection checks, this guy here has got a very, very bright future ahead of him,” Day said after the Cotton Bowl. “I think Julian has a chance to be as good as he wants to be.
“Now he's got to learn from this, and that's a big part of playing quarterback. When you look at a lot of the guys who have success at the highest levels of college football, they have a lot of games under their belt. And Julian's got this now, this season to learn from and grow from, and he's going to come back even stronger next year.”
One month into the offseason, Day’s confidence in Sayin’s development entering Sayin’s second year as Ohio State’s quarterback has only grown.
“Julian has been awesome here, and really wants to make sure that we have guys around him and an offense together that we can go win the whole thing and reach our goals,” Day said. “So Julian is going to have a huge offseason. Julian is really going to dive into this thing and take the next step.”
