Ryan Day assesses Ohio State quarterback competition after spring game

Ohio State entered the offseason looking for a new quarterback, and it appears that Julian Sayin and Lincoln Kienholz have emerged as the front-runners for the job. They were able to showcase their talents in front of head coach Ryan Day, and the fans in Ohio Stadium at the team’s annual spring game on Saturday.

After the scrimmage, Day provided some instant analysis on his two quarterbacks. Most importantly, he saw progress from his young signal callers.

“I felt like Lincoln (Kienholz) settled down after the first drive or so and made some nice throws,” Day said. “But I thought Julian (Sayin) for the most part early on was in rhythm and moved the team down the field for a couple touchdowns, which was good. Made some nice throws. There’s certainly a lot to grow from and this is why we did this. You can see it was a fairly significant emphasis on throwing the ball to see how the quarterbacks were going to respond.

“We’ll use this as another evaluation tool because right from the jump from when we got off the bus to when we just finished there, I’m glad we did this. I’m glad we did the spring game. I wasn’t sure, but it was definitely the right thing to do.”

Overall, Sayin completed 17 of his 24 passing attempts for 175 yards. He led the Buckeyes to three-straight touchdown drives to start the game. Meanwhile, Kienholz went 12 of 18 for 158 yards to go with two touchdowns. Kienholz completed a 51-yard catch and run touchdown to Mylan Graham on a slant, which turned into one of the best highlight reel plays of the afternoon.

Still, there’s no working around the inexperience within the Ohio State quarterback room at the moment. However, Day appears driven to put his players in a position to succeed.

“I think it’s just a matter of playing the game,” Day continued. “And that’s why I think we’ve talked about this this spring. As the spring has gone on, I’ve just realized that at all positions, but most importantly at quarterback, we have to continue to play 11-on-11 football.

“And you can see the growth. You saw some growth even in the short amount of time that you guys were able to watch some of the practice this spring. We have the ability to watch them on a daily basis, see them grow.”