History has told us that taking too much from the annual Ohio State football Spring Game would be a buyer beware type of scenario. Still, there’s no substitute from getting players in a game-type setting inside Ohio Stadium in front of a decent crowd. It’s one thing to do things behind closed doors in a scrimmage setting, but doing it in the public eye just means more.
So, yeah — we’ll pump the brakes a little on what we saw on the banks of the Olentangy Saturday, — but still take some things away from what we saw with our very own eyes. After all, it’s what we get paid to do, right?
In fact, during the season, after every Buckeye game, we try to take a few things away from the action. It’s almost become a tradition around here, so we’re doing the same thing when it comes to the Spring Game. How did the quarterbacks look? What about the new coaches on staff? Did receiver Jeremiah Smith leap tall buildings?
Here are five things we took from the Ohio State football Spring Game as the Buckeyes look to put the puzzle pieces together to defend their College Football Playoff national championship.
Ohio State QB1 appears to be Julian Sayin … for now
Coming into the season, it was almost a foregone conclusion that former five-star quarterback prospect Julian Sayin would be the next guy to be the answer under center. However, according to head coach Ryan Day, he and Lincoln Kienholz were basically neck-and-neck through spring thus far.
On Saturday, Sayin appeared to separate himself. He was poised, decisive, showed zip on the ball, and had a quick release. He looked like the most polished of the three quarterbacks in a game environment, and that has to count for something. Now, there’s still plenty of time to go until OSU runs out of the tunnel to take on Texas for the season-opener, but you have to feel better about Sayin’s chances of wrestling the starting job away at this point.
But … about Tavien St. Clair
Let’s not forget about another five-star quarterback, though. The in-state product Tavien St. Clair looked had a rough start, throwing two picks, but bounced back and showed promise. He’s still raw and has a ton of catching up to do as a freshman, but his arm strength, precision, and ability to be a threat in the ground game was on display at times on Saturday.
It’s unlikely that he makes up enough ground to be a starter as a freshman, but he very well could be the future of the position with a little more seasoning and time in the program. His day wasn’t as impressive as Sayin, but you can’t turn on the film from Saturday and not see what he could become down the road.
A vanilla game plan
One of the things we were anxious to see was how the two “new” coordinators called the game and what the flow and personnel packages would look like. And while we saw some of that, there’s no doubt this was about as vanilla of a game plan as what you could get, so not much we can glean from it.
Still, Brian Hartline’s offense moved the ball very well, so kudos there. On defense, Day remarked after the game that they ran just two defenses all day, so you have to take that for what it’s worth. Bottom line – there’s going to be plenty more to look at early on in the season to see what kind of defense (and offense for that matter) Matt Patricia and Hartline run.
There is still an abundance of talent for Ohio State
Ohio State lost 15 NFL-caliber players off of last year’s starting squad on both sides of the ball. Boo-hoo. It’s hard to imagine this team being as good as last year’s with all of that departing talent, but there’s no debate on how much skill this team still has. Some of the offensive weapons saw limited duty because — well, duh. But then we saw guys like receiver Mylan Graham popping off as well as some newcomers on defense making plays and showing up on film.
Michigan had a huge drop off last year after losing a ton of veteran talent, and I dare to say that the OSU program won’t suffer that same fate. Again, you can expect some growing pains as the youngsters figure it out, but this is where the Ohio State program is simply better than the one up in Ann Arbor. It looks like a reload rather than a rebuild in Columbus, as it almost always is.
Hello Payton Pierce
Like many of the OSU positions, the linebacking room needs players to step up. Enter stage left, Payton Pierce. We’ve heard linebackers coach James Laurinaitis and other coaches sing the praises of Pierce through spring ball, but we saw with our own eyes inside the ‘Shoe on Saturday.
Pierce seemed to be everywhere on the defensive side of the ball. He made some big hits, flew to the ball, and seems to have an elite way of diagnosing plays and being in the right spot more often than not. I can’t wait to see if this all translates to the field in the fall, and what he means to this defense when it comes to run support and coverage in space.
He might be one of your breakout household names in 2025.
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