Grading Will Howard in Ohio State football’ 52-6 win over Akron

will Howard made his Ohio State debut on Saturday I'm Steven means that's Stefan Chik that's Andrew Gillis 17 of 28 228 yards three touchdowns plus another 18 yards rushing as we typically do we're grading the quarterback Stefan what's your grade for will Howard yeah give him a a b I think early on things were kind of sluggish I think he was a little bit kind of sporadic in the pocket I think trying to do a little bit too much at times and also he didn't get a lot of help from the offensive line at least early on in the game but here after that especially Ohio State kind of got their run game going and we're were able to kind of establish that phase of the game it seemed like he settled in a bit um probably had to settle into the environment you know the first game Jitters that come even for a veteran quarterback like him who's at a new spot and I think he settled in and and ended up making a few really good passes the the two touchdowns to Jeremiah Smith were both really good passes I thought the Deep ball to Jeremiah was a good pass so um overall I think it was a pretty good performance but but I give it a b just because of maybe that the sluggish start that you can't really afford when when competition picks up so B B where you at Andrew I'm at a B2 um I think there were a couple different things working today I think we had this conversation last year like how do you weigh the opponent I mean this is akan if he had done this against Penn State I think we're probably looking at it much better right I think we're looking at it as as a really solid day did this against akan so I think you need to weigh the uh the quality of competition kind of what you would expect he said himself that the first half was not great that they were forcing things that he was forcing things that he was just trying trying to do too much and I think it looked like that so I thought it was pretty good I I you know I thought it was good enough um the thing that I need to see from him moving forward is how can you elevate this offense what can you do with this offense to take them to that next level because that is something that we didn't see last year and that is kind of the big promise with Will Howard right that he can Elevate this team so I want to see that I'm going to talk more about this on Buckeye talk so listen to the podcast please but I don't know if he was necessarily put in the right position today in terms of how they operated the offense I'm not holding that against him again I have some thoughts about that and how the offense was kind of called and operated today but I think it was a b i i I think there was a a lot of good some bad I think you can move on this moving forward two B's I'm going to give him an a because I saw the thing you were talking about today I thought the offensive line struggled for most of the first half and I charted this out he was nine of 19 in the first half and I think only three of those were his fault three of them were dropped by his wide receivers there were another three that are just throwaways which that's a good decision there's nothing there throw the ball away it just counts as a negative in a box score and then there were three others where I think the offensive line just didn't do him any favors so that's only three of the 10 in the first half incompletions that were his fault and he was eight of nine in the second half I thought to your point the throws the touchdown throws that Jeremiah Smith were great I thought his best two plays of the day one he had a touchdown throw not a touchdown but a fade route to Jeremiah Smith that was like whoa Jeremiah Smith is good but whoa will Howard can push the ball down the field but he had another another one it was Blitzer comes up the middle and he's actually standing where I am right now he does exactly what Kyle mcor didn't do last year that was the point he made space in the pocket he made the guy Miss he didn't just take off and run like Justin Fields would have he stayed poised in the pocket like CJ shroud would have and what did he do he found his receiver it just happened to also be Jeremiah Smith you're catching a theme for what the day was today but kudos to Jeremiah Smith too for recognizing and not going what was clearly a go route and just stopping his route so that will Howard has someone to throw to that's what I saw because the offensive line is still a question but with Kyle mcor the offensive line being a question man H dead play with Will Howard it might not be a dead play and that's going to matter against Oregon it's going to matter against Penn State as well so the offensive line is actually not where I'm going with this so when we do our podcast it's not the offensive line that I had some concerns with I'll leave it at that okay will Howard a b b 52-6 Ohio State wins his first game go listen to book IE talk wherever you find podcast to listen to whatever Andrew is going to say was his concern get the text 14 350 3315 it's a twoe free trial 399 after that I'm Stephen he's Andrew he's Stefan we're out of here