Julian Sayin, college football’s most accurate QB? Ohio State’s plan is on track

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The more time Ryan Day has spent evaluating quarterbacks, the more he sees similar traits in all of the successful ones he’s been around.

Day has been at Ohio State since 2017 and the head coach since 2019. He had a big part to play in the development of J.T. Barrett, Justin Fields and C.J. Stroud, and he also helped Kansas State transfer Will Howard become a sixth-round pick last April after winning the national championship.

“Over time you start to see similarities and sometimes you’re wrong,” Day said, “but then you have to find the guy who is right for this school, this place and this program, because that’s not always easy to find.”

There’s a high intellectual aspect that Day looks for from quarterbacks, and not just from a football standpoint. Day said good quarterbacks have spatial intelligence and emotional intelligence and process information at a high rate. And that’s before the physical traits of actually being able to throw the football come into play.

Still, the recruitment and development of QBs is hardly a perfect science.

“If it was, these NFL teams and college teams would have it down, there’d be an AI app to figure out who the best quarterback is,” Day said. “But it doesn’t work like that.”

Day hasn’t been perfect when picking quarterbacks. Kyle McCord, albeit talented, decided to transfer to Syracuse to find a better fit instead of returning as a starter at Ohio State. So Day brought in Howard, who had the attitude and temperament that last year’s Ohio State team needed.

Now, it’s on to Julian Sayin, who’s quickly emerging as one of the most efficient quarterbacks in the FBS in his first season as starter. It appears the right fit has been found, even after Sayin initially signed with Alabama before Nick Saban retired.

“Julian, I think in his mind, has always wanted to play at a place like Ohio State. He saw himself in that light,” Day said. “That’s part of the process of quarterbacks. They see what they want and they are driven and you can’t tell them anything else. It’s not up for discussion despite setbacks.”

That process is not linear. Some days there are good moments, and some days there are bad, especially for young starters.

“It’s like you have moments where they are climbing the mountain and growing and you’re thinking it’s going pretty good and then you get off the field and go, ‘OK this guy might have a chance.’ Then you see them in a game and it’s a good sign. You start to check those boxes,” Day said. “Some guys, they come off the field, and you’re like, ‘Man I don’t know if he sees it or if it makes sense to him.’ Then he comes back and responds or doesn’t. There’s moments when you recognize it and see that OK this is trending in the right direction or it’s trending in the wrong direction. But the good ones respond quickly. They make a mistake, get it fixed and move on. The ones who struggle are the ones who make the same mistake over and over again.”

Sayin hasn’t faced an ideal scenario for a first-time starter. If Day had his way, the five-star Class of 2024 recruit wouldn’t have had to make his starting debut against a defense like Texas and his first road game wouldn’t have been at a tough venue like Washington.

And yet, Sayin’s five starts have gone about as well as anybody could’ve imagined. Through No. 1 Ohio State’s 5-0 start ahead of Saturday’s game at No. 17 Illinois, Sayin has completed 101 of 126 passes for 1,313 yards with 13 touchdowns and three interceptions. He ranks first in the FBS in completion rate (80.2 percent) and third in pass efficiency (196.99).

In other words, everything is going according to plan.

Sayin’s command of the offense began with trust

The two most important days of the week for an Ohio State quarterback are Tuesday and Wednesday. It’s the time when Ohio State takes its weekly install from the meeting rooms and puts it on the field.

To start at Ohio State, a quarterback has to be able to take the demand for excellence that Day has in those moments. That’s where the trust between coach and player is formed.

“When you’re out there, we’re trying to simulate the game the best we can,” Day said. “We’re trying to recognize the things that we feel like each guy can do based on the game plan, and then, as coaches, we try to put them in a situation to be successful. … It’s like an audition to see what it’s going to be like on Saturday.”

Though Sayin is a first-year starter, he’s in his second year at Ohio State and had a front-row seat to see how Howard worked behind the scenes in his one year with the Buckeyes after starting 28 games at Kansas State.

Sayin has taken what he learned, put his own spin on it and run with his opportunity.

“With the preparation, the meetings, the walkthroughs, on the field, taking command, taking coaching and making corrections,” Day said, “all that stuff is important.”

The journey to being a starter goes beyond Sayin trying to build trust with his coaches. He needs his team to believe in him too.

That comes from consistent play in practice and in games, but also with the way he has command of the huddle.

Howard was praised last year for his leadership. Not only did he have the ear of everybody involved, but he could recite long play calls in one breath, break the huddle and dissect what the defense is in.

Sayin has shown signs of that ability. So much so that Day said he’s impressed sometimes by how fast Sayin can recite the play and get the team to the line of scrimmage.

“I’m like, ‘I don’t know if I could remember all of that.’ It’s not easy,” Day said. “He can read calls fast … whether it’s two or three plays in the huddle or some sort of tip to the guys on what’s going on. Understanding down and distance, personnel, what the situation is — the communication is where that comes into play. They have to believe that the leader knows what he’s doing and can do his job.”

From there, Sayin gets to the line of scrimmage and the rest comes almost naturally.

Sayin’s superpower? Accuracy

Day believes that starting quarterbacks need an “extraordinary trait” to lead the Ohio State football team.

For some, it’s a personality trait. For others, it’s physical.

Sayin has been the most accurate quarterback in college football thus far. His success is a byproduct of two things: Ohio State easing him into the season and offensive scheme and his ability to make tight-window throws look easy.

There’s no debate that this year’s Ohio State team is led by its stout defense. Under new defensive coordinator Matt Patricia, the Buckeyes have given up just two touchdowns in five games. That defensive dominance, even with eight new starters, has given Ohio State time to get Sayin comfortable. That doesn’t mean that Ohio State expected anything less than excellence from Sayin, but it allowed the California native to get comfortable as a first-year starter.

He started with a mastery of underneath routes. Sayin has completed 81 percent of his passes from zero to 10 yards, according to TruMedia, and 63 percent of his 23 attempts from 11 to 20 yards. He’s also getting more comfortable with red zone throws, throwing a 6-yard touchdown to Jeremiah Smith against Minnesota last Saturday.

But Ohio State had yet to truly open up the downfield passing attack until the Minnesota game. Again, it was another challenge passed by Sayin, as he threw for 326 yards and three touchdowns, stopping any questions people might’ve had about the strength of his arm or his deep ball accuracy.

CMP: 23/27YDS: 326TD: 3INT: 0

Julian Sayin threw a bunch of dots in @OhioStateFB’s 42-3 win over Minnesota 🎯 pic.twitter.com/eFklXlagGY

— Ohio State on BTN (@OhioStateOnBTN) October 5, 2025

Sayin is second in the FBS in off-target rate at 6.3 percent of his passes, just behind Missouri’s Beau Pribula, per TruMedia. Take it a step further, and he doesn’t have a single off-target throw on a pass 20 yards or more and only two of those 14 attempts fell incomplete, both targeted toward Smith and deflected by Minnesota defensive backs.

“I think we focus a lot on it as a quarterback room and an offense,” Sayin said. “We practice those a lot and we have a marker where we want to leave it. It’s all a collection of the work we put in during the offseason and the summer.”

Being able to complete passes at the rate Sayin has is about his arm, timing and trust between everybody involved, from the players on the field to the coaches calling the plays.

And it’s something that has been built over the past 10 months in what, to this point, has been an ideal developmental process as Ohio State prepares to enter the heart of Big Ten play in pursuit of another national championship.

“To see the way he’s responded in some big moments, we can build off of that,” Day said. “People see that and get excited about it. It’s just the beginning, a long way to go, but it’s very encouraging.”