Insider Drops Compelling Update on Ohio State's QB Competition

Following the Ohio State Buckeyes' national championship victory last season, everyone automatically assumed that Will Howard would be handing the reins to Julian Sayin as far as the starting quarterback job was concerned. But it hasn't been that simple.

While Sayin has widely been regarded as the favorite since the 2024 campaign concluded, Lincoln Kienholz has made things very interesting in Columbus, thanks much in part to a rocky spring from Sayin and with the 19-year-old actually posting mixed results in the early stages of fall camp.

Ohio State has less than a month to figure out who will be under center against Texas on Aug. 30, and while the prevailing thought is that it will still be Sayin, Dan Hope of Eleven Warriors isn't so sure that it's so cut and dry.

"Two days into preseason camp, my overall view on the quarterback competition remains the same as it was going in. It’s fair to call Sayin the presumptive frontrunner, but I still believe there’s a real competition between him and Kienholz – especially after Kienholz was named an Iron Buckeye on Friday," Hope wrote. "Neither quarterback has delivered a wow moment yet in camp, but they also haven’t made many glaring mistakes."

The fact that things are still this close between Sayin — a former five-star recruit lauded for his incredible talent and dual-threat ability — and Kienholz is definitely surprising. There is still some time for the redshirt freshman to create some separation, but it would obviously be nice if Sayin began to gain some momentum as soon as possible.

One thing is for sure: whoever wins the starting role will have no shortage of weapons at their disposal, so the Buckeyes' quarterback job will definitely be an enviable one.