Julian Sayin’s Heisman Campaign Bolsters Before Bye

Due to how Ohio State plays and the sheer overwhelming talent at just about every position, it may be difficult for a player on Ryan Day’s team to win college football’s most prestigious trophy. Day has been the head coach of the Buckeyes since 2019. In that time, Justin Fields, Chase Young, C.J. Stroud (twice), and Marvin Harrison Jr. made the trip to New York City as Heisman Trophy finalists. Fields and Stroud (2022) finished third, the current high-water mark for Day-coached players.

A staple of Day teams has been quarterback play. It’s telling that the worst single season from an Ohio State quarterback in this era went on to lead the country in passing after transferring out. He knows quarterbacks, and it’s time to start talking about the latest: redshirt freshman Julian Sayin.

To start the year, it looked like Day and offensive coordinator Brian Hartline were holding back and essentially putting training wheels on the offense with Sayin. As a redshirt freshman in his first season at the collegiate level, it only makes sense. Over the last few weeks, however, it’s looking more and more that those training wheels are gone and the offense is fully Sayin’s. The coaches are trusting him to go through his reads and even make plays out of structure.

In the win over Wisconsin, Sayin routinely picked apart the Badgers’ defense. He had six incompletions and only one could be considered an errant throw, while a few were underthrown (but catchable nevertheless).

Could the signal-caller from Carlsbad, California, be the Buckeyes’ third quarterback and eighth overall Heisman Trophy winner?

Julian Sayin’s Heisman Campaign

Sayin’s Growth Thus Far

In the Week 1 win over Texas, Ohio State didn’t ask Sayin to do much. He was the quintessential game manager and led the offense efficiently. While he finished the day 13-of-20 for 126 yards and one touchdown. That line is a tad misleading, as his receivers let him down a few times with crucial drops. It was also Brian Hartline’s first game as offensive playcaller, so he naturally pulled it back. Then, Sayin did what he was supposed to do against Grambling State. His game started off with 16 consecutive completed passes. His 17th pass was an interception in the endzone. Then, he completed his final two attempts before sitting down. Sayin paced the offense with 306 yards and four touchdowns.

To close out non-conference play, Sayin continued his impressive play. Against Ohio, he completed 25-of-32 passing for 347 yards and three touchdowns. The Bobcats’ secondary has allowed just under 206 yards per game through the air in all other contests. The one knock on Sayin was his two interceptions. The first interception was tipped at the line. The second was a freshman mistake, much like his interception against Grambling State. On first down, he faced a free rusher and tried to just let the ball go, but it found a Bobcat defensive lineman.

After the first bye, Sayin and the Buckeye offense locked in. In those four Big Ten games, Sayin threw for 1,093 yards and 11 touchdowns with no interceptions. Most impressively, he is currently completing 80.6% of his passes in Big Ten play.

Sayin has gone from just doing what he can to help the offense move the ball to fully taking over. He went from 20 passes against Texas to throwing it 42 times against Wisconsin. At every step, he’s been accurate and making big-time throws. His back-of-the-endzone toss to Brandon Inniss against the Badgers might be his best thus far.

“But They Ain’t Played Nobody Pawwwwwllllll”

Like clockwork, any praise of Ohio State is met with a comment along the lines of, “They haven’t played anyone.” On the one hand, fair. To the casual viewer, Grambling State, Ohio, Washington, Minnesota, Illinois, and Wisconsin are not impressive. Even Texas is in the public’s doghouse because Arch Manning hasn’t already engraved his name on the Heisman Trophy.

The Buckeyes’ opponents have, for the most part, been better against the pass against non-Ohio State teams:

Now that the year has progressed, Texas is obviously not the team we all imagined. However, Ohio State is benefiting from the potential SEC bias in the AP Poll, as Texas is currently ranked 22nd despite only one win over a team with a winning record. Looking back, Grambling State has been playing well. Yes, the Tigers play in the FCS, but holding all non-Ohio State opponents to 165.7 yards per game through the air is impressive.

In the Washington and Illinois wins, the Ohio State offense wasn’t quite as good as it should have been, so you can certainly highlight those as negatives. However, the highs are higher than the lows are low with Sayin throwing it.