Will Howard’s growth, commitment to play-action opens up Ohio State’s offense

Just like they did at the conclusion of spring practice, Ohio State’s coaches gave quarterback Will Howard a checklist of things to address during an off week following season-opening wins over Akron and Western Michigan. Back in April, the areas of improvement included the need for Howard to gain a deeper understanding of the offense, to solidify his mechanics, to tweak his body composition and maximize every pound and inch of his 6-foot-4, 235-pound frame. While still specific to Howard, a transfer from Kansas State, they were the kinds of requests commonly attached to most quarterbacks joining new programs.

This time, though, the requests from new offensive coordinator Chip Kelly, who said the Buckeyes’ coaching staff graded every player during the bye week, were far more intricate. They addressed things like Howard’s demeanor during play-action fakes, his fundamental footwork for certain families of plays, his recognition of pre-snap indicators to discern coverages long before the ball is snapped. In other words, Howard had moved beyond Ohio State Quarterback Play 101 and progressed to graduate-level work in time for Saturday’s matchup with Marshall (Noon ET on FOX and the FOX Sports App).

“Will continues to grow every day,” Kelly said in a news conference earlier this week. “That’s one thing I love about him. He’s a lifelong learner. He comes in here every day really hungry about, ‘How do I get a little bit better every day?’ And I think last week he did improve from Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in training sessions.”

He also made significant improvements between his first and second outings in an Ohio State uniform to help assuage any doubts that might have surfaced for a fan base still spurned by last year’s uneven quarterback play from Kyle McCord, who subsequently transferred to Syracuse and is enjoying a tremendous start to the season by completing 59 of 85 passes (69.4%) for 735 yards, eight touchdowns and one interception in two games. 

Howard overcame a rocky start against Akron in which he misfired on 10 of his first 16 passes and only led two touchdown drives in the Buckeyes’ first six possessions to enjoy a sizzling start against Western Michigan last weekend. He completed 10 consecutive passes to open the game — including a 70-yard touchdown to freshman phenom Jeremiah Smith, a budding star at wide receiver — and guided Ohio State to the end zone on five of its first six drives in an eventual 56-0 rout. By game’s end, Howard had completed 18 of 26 passes (69.2%) for 292 yards, two total touchdowns, no interceptions and an NFL passer rating of 119.4, according to Pro Football Focus. Howard’s season-long passer rating of 120.9 is more than 30 points higher than his career average. 

“I actually, this semester, have class at night,” Howard said in a news conference earlier this week. “And don’t tell my professors, but sometimes I watch a little film in class. I like to watch film every day, whatever it is, I just like to wake up and watch a little bit of something. I love the game of football, and I love the chess game that it is. I love how much strategy goes into it. And I think that’s a fun part of it, being able to come out and have something planned for your opponent that they’re not ready for, or seeing something before it happens is really fun.”

And there might not be a better chess master for Howard to learn from than Kelly, whose influence on Ohio State’s offense through the first few weeks of the season seems far more significant than most outsiders expected when head coach Ryan Day ceded playcalling duties to his mentor and close friend. Kelly’s broad and consistent commitment to creative pre-snap motions have introduced new wrinkles for opposing defenders to process in real time. And when paired with Kelly’s extensive array of play-action fakes and run-pass options (RPOs) that invoke a quarterback’s proficiency with sleight of hand, the number of potential outcomes on any given play are beginning to feel somewhat voluminous: from a traditional handoff to the running back to an RPO in which Howard, who rushed for more than 900 yards across four seasons at Kansas State, pulls the ball from the tailback’s belly and carries it himself; from a play-action pass that originates in the pocket to a sprint-out that slides the protection and reduces how much of the field Howard is tasked with reading. 

It’s the play-action passing that has proved lethal for Ohio State thus far, with Howard completing 19 of 25 such attempts for 321 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions, according to Pro Football Focus. Play-action passes account for 46.4% of Howard’s dropbacks through the first two weeks — a huge increase from the 28.9% mark he posted with the Wildcats last year — and his adjusted completion percentage of 87.5%, which doesn’t penalize quarterbacks for dropped balls, ranks fourth nationally among signal-callers with at least 25 such attempts. Smith, who was a five-star prospect and the No. 1 overall recruit for the 2024 cycle, leads the team with 11 receptions for 211 yards and three touchdowns. That he’s averaging more than 19 yards per catch speaks to both the vertical element of Ohio State’s offense and Smith’s keen ability to generate yards after catch (73 through the first two games).

“As long as I can just keep us on schedule and not force things,” Howard said, “make the right decisions with the football, with the guys that we have, just let them do the rest. We’ve been blocking really well. I think the running backs have been doing a good job and the receivers are obviously going to get open. So for me, it’s just taking what the defense gives me and not trying to do too much and make the perfect play, but just make things right.”

And as Howard noted, the efficacy of Ohio State’s passing game can be directly linked to a rushing attack that ranks 18th nationally with 6.2 yards per carry behind the one-two punch of tailbacks Quinshon Judkins (22 carries, 163 yards, 3 TDs) and TreVeyon Henderson (18 carries, 131 yards, 2 TDs), both of whom are forcing defenses to honor the play-action fakes. True freshman tailback James Peoples, who was a four-star recruit from Texas, has chipped in 81 yards and two touchdowns on 16 carries as the Buckeyes’ third-string runner. 

Ohio State’s average of 36 rushing attempts through the first two weeks is slightly ahead of last year’s pace (33.2) when Day was calling plays. The Buckeyes are tied for first nationally in power success rate, a metric tracking how often short-yardage runs either convert a first down or score a touchdown, and they rank third in offensive stuff rate, which measures the percentage of runs stopped at or behind the line of scrimmage. All of which makes life far easier for Howard. 

“I think it starts with the runs,” Day said in a news conference earlier this week. “When you’re running the ball, now you have to be more aggressive [as a defense], safeties have to get lower, you’ve got to put an extra guy in the box, which opens up things down the field. But I think the work we put in on the timing of some of those concepts — the protection has been strong like I said — but it’s timing those things up and marrying up the run game with the play-action pass, as they go hand in hand. And then there’s the RPOs, which are similar to that as well.

“But you’re looking to always complement the runs with some sort of play-action pass to put people in conflict. Chip has always done that, and we’ve always done that here. On just about every play, you want to put somebody in conflict.”

Come Saturday, the conflicted party will be Marshall. 

Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. Follow him on Twitter @Michael_Cohen13.

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