Jeremiah Smith is ready for his next step in his Ohio State career, even if it means having a new quarterback under center in Julian Sayin.
Sayin, who replaced Will Howard after Howard was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in April, beat out Lincoln Kienholz to become the team's starter this season. Despite Sayin being green at the position, Smith, who burst onto the college football scene last fall as a freshman as one of the game's best receivers en route to a Buckeyes national title win, is excited to play with Sayin this fall.
"I’m expecting Julian to go out there every single week and put on a show,” Smith said on "The Triple Option" podcast. “Julian’s a smart player and a smart quarterback. He can make any and every throw. A student of the game and I just can’t wait to see the things he does this year.”
Coach Ryan Day's decision as to who would start for the Buckeyes wasn't an easy one. It was, however, more about timing than anything else.
“I think you’re always looking for consistency and taking care of the football," Day told reporters.
“And when you start with practice one in the spring and then kind of do study on the entire growth over six months, you see that there was a lot of growth made. You look at the numbers that the production, we felt like he was in a situation where he was really ready to go play in this game.”
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Smith and Sayin are tasked with attempting to help lead the Buckeyes back to the national title game once again. To do so, it will need to handle business against No. 1-ranked Texas and Arch Manning in Columbus one week from Saturday.
If Ohio State were to knock off the Longhorns, all bets are off for how the team could go as it turned a Week 14 Michigan loss this past season into a springboard for winning it all.
Kickoff is set for noon ET on Fox, part of a stacked weekend of games to make up the Week 1 schedule.