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Ryan Day details Ohio State’s 3-man QB battle ahead of spring game
By Paul Harvey
Published:
Ohio State has another quarterback battle for Ryan Day and his staff to sort through, and the head coach addressed where things stand entering Saturday’s spring game.
Things are a little bit different in Columbus this season with Ohio State coming off its first national title since 2014. However, the pressure is still there to get things ready for a repeat, and that means getting a new starting quarterback ready from a trio of talented participants.
At his Monday press conference, Day reflected on an open practice session on Saturday that involved having the QBs fully live for a portion of the period. The head coach explained the main focus there was to get the players to understand that every rep matters.
Overall, Day has seen the trio of Julian Sayin, Lincoln Kienholz and Tavien St. Clair get better each and every day. However, there is still some inconsistency in the practice performances.
“It’s been 3 guys getting after it every day, improvement across the board. There’s been good days on all fronts, but then there’ve been other days not so good. They’re growing, they’re learning,” said Day. “There’s nobody any much that much further ahead of the other one right now. They’re going to continue to compete and this is a big week for them and Saturday will be a big day for them.”
Later in his press conference, Day was asked to describe the separation in the current battle, but he did not have much to add. He only said that St. Clair has the biggest gap simply due to his inexperience, but Kienholz and Sayin are in the thick of things.
“I think it’s fair to say that Tavien probably has the longest way to go, just because of just the lack of experience,” Day explained. “I think it’s easy to see, you guys saw on Saturday, the talent, his ability to run, the athleticism, the arm. He has all those things, he just needs to play more… and then Lincoln and Julian are pretty much neck and neck right now.”
We are still early on in the preparation for the 2025 season, but that is a significant development considering the expectation coming out of last season. Many anticipated Sayin was the QB1 in waiting once Will Howard wrapped up his career, with Devin Brown and Air Noland transferring.
Instead, it currently looks like Kienholz is in the heat of battle and has a serious chance to win the job in the fall. We’ll see if any of that changes after the spring game moving forward.
Paul is a lifelong fan and student of all things college football. He has been covering college football since 2017 and the B1G since 2018.