Scarlet Sunrise: Will Howard in On3 Impact Top 10 QBs after two weeks

COLUMBUS — Ohio State quarterback Will Howard is proving why he won the starting quarterback job in preseason camp — and it’s only been two games.

Howard is 35-of-54 passing for 520 yards and four touchdown passes in his first two games, good enough for him to land on the On3 Impact Top 10 Quarterbacks rankings this week. He’s ninth.

On3’s experts have put their heads together and weighed the performances thus far, as well as the overall ability of each signal-caller, to determine the rankings.

Howard trails Georgia’s Carson Beck, Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart, Texas’ Quinn Ewers, Cam Ward from Miami, Jalen Milroe from Alabama, Shedeur Sanders from Colorado, Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel and Nico Iamaleava from Tennessee.

But if Howard continues to play well, he’ll rise in the rankings.

ICYMI: Buckeyes evaluating options at kick returner

Ohio State has seen an improvement in some aspects of its special teams, but it hasn’t been perfect in the first year of a new special teams operation.

Wide receiver Jayden Ballard had two special teams errors Saturday night, one of which was a muffed punt that he jumped back on for a recovery. The other, though, was much more costly. He called for a fair catch on a kickoff that was in play, but he didn’t catch the kick, instead fielding it at the 4-yard line. That forced the Buckeyes to begin the first drive of the second half with 96 yards to the end zone.

With those errors in mind and an ‘Improvement Week’ underway, the Buckeyes are looking to either see improvement from Ballard or find a better answer at kick returner.

“We think that Jayden Ballard had a really good offseason,” Day said. “He was recognized as a gold individual during the off season, which is significant in our program. So we’ve given him the opportunity to return kicks and a couple of punts here. But the number one thing is taking care of the football. So that has to happen.

“We believe in who Jayden is, but at the end of the day, we have to take care of the football. So we are going to evaluate it during this week and make sure that we’re doing the right thing.”

What Buckeyes need to improve after two weeks

This is a preview of a Lettermen Row premium story from our Alex Gleitman.

Will Howard has been pretty solid for Ohio State as their new quarterback through two games. The Kansas State transfer has completed nearly 65-percent of his passes for 520 yards and 4 touchdowns against 0 interceptions, while also rushing 5 times for 24 yards with 1 score.

The one area where Howard hasn’t been completely polished, though, is the deep passing game. There was maybe a ball or two against Akron in the opener that wasn’t thrown as it needed to be, and there were a few against Western Michigan that were either missed or poor decisions (and could have been costly against a better opponent).

READ MORE: A-Deck: What Ohio State needs to work on to win a national title

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Counting down

Buckeyes vs. Marshall: 8 days
Ohio State at Oregon: 29 days
Ohio State at Penn State: 50 days
Buckeyes vs. Michigan: 78 days

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