Former Ohio State QB Will Howard admits he would have had a problem if Ryan Day didn’t make a certain hire

Year in and year out the Ohio State Buckeyes have had mostly high-level quarterback play. At least that has been the case under Ryan Day and back to Urban Meyer.

After Kyle McCord moved onto Syracuse after the 2023 season, the Buckeyes went out and added Will Howard from Kansas State in the transfer portal. It was the exact move that the Buckeyes needed to go on and win a National Championship.

Howard improved immensely while in Columbus and raised his NFL draft stock. One of the reasons that Howard was able to improve was his work with Billy Fessler, who is now the full-time quarterbacks coach at Ohio State. In 2024, Fessler was an analyst by title but still worked with the quarterbacks. Fessler’s promotion was one that Howard wanted to see.

“I’m so happy for him,” Howard said at the NFL Scouting Combine at the end of February. “If coach Day didn’t hire him to be the quarterback coach, I would have had a problem with it. He taught me so much this year [and] he was integral to my development. He is absolutely 100% the best man for the job. He’s going to be great for that room. He brings a human element to where he’s not that much older than us so he’s able to relate to us on a guy-to-guy level, but he’s also able to lock in.

“He taught me more than a lot of guys in that role could have. He was really the mouthpiece from coach Day and coach Kelly to me a lot of times if they were doing anything else. He was really my personal one-on-one QB coach at times. I’ve got all the praise in the world for that dude, he’s helped me so much.”