Elizabeth MerrillApr 10, 2025, 09:00 AM ET
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- Elizabeth Merrill is a senior creator for ESPN. She up to now wrote for The Kansas Town Celebrity and The Omaha International-Usher in.
WILL HOWARD HAD no thought how badly his week used to be going till the web informed him. “Are you all proper?” his female friend Skyler Skoglund requested him ultimate month, after Howard opened his telephone. He’d flown from the NFL mix to Minnesota to peer her — a snappy respite from the frenetic tempo of draft season. He in truth idea the entirety used to be OK. Then the 6-foot-4, 236-pound quarterback from Ohio State won a curious textual content message.
It used to be a screenshot of a social media put up from former Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders, a projected first-round choose on this yr’s draft, chiding detractors for hating on Howard.
Puzzled, Howard texted his agent, Chase Callahan.
“Am I getting hated on at this time?” Howard requested Callahan.
Howard have been booed throughout his passing exercise on the mix, however he shrugged it off as some highly spiced Michigan enthusiasts nonetheless sour over Ohio State successful the nationwide championship in January. He did not know {that a} viral video of him overthrowing receivers throughout that exercise used to be making the rounds on-line, or that he’d develop into the debate du jour of the development.
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Information of Howard’s efficiency even made it all of the approach around the pond, with a blistering headline from a British tabloid: “NFL prospect Will Howard savaged over ‘worst mix efficiency of all time.'”
His agent informed him to not fear. This stuff occur within the lengthy days between the Tremendous Bowl and the NFL draft. Two years in the past, every other Ohio State quarterback, C.J. Stroud, used to be the point of interest of intense scrutiny when phrase leaked that he did poorly on a pre-draft take a look at designed to assist measure a quarterback’s talent to make split-second selections.
Stroud went directly to develop into the Houston Texans’ No. 2 choose within the draft and used to be NFL Offensive Rookie of the 12 months.
Howard’s imaginable situations for the 2025 NFL draft, which runs April 24-26 in Inexperienced Bay, Wisconsin, are not as glitzy. Nobody is aware of the place he will move, however he isn’t projected to be drafted early like Sanders or Miami’s Cam Ward.
Howard is not anxious. He believes that he will one day be a beginning NFL quarterback, and that all of the pre-draft noise is simply every other bankruptcy within the many travails of Will Howard.
“I consider I am the most productive quarterback on this elegance,” the 23-year-old informed ESPN. “I believe there is incredible ability. But when you’ll be a competitor, on the finish of the day, you must have that trust in your self, and I believe that is what is helping me get thru the ones adversarial instances.
“S— occurs. You have got so to care for it, and it is the mentally difficult other people which are ready to conquer the ones issues. I believe in my occupation I have simply had to try this over and over, and I have learned it is a unending cycle.”
After the 2023 season, Will Howard entered the switch portal and ended up leaving Kansas State for Ohio State. Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire/Getty Photographs
HE LOST HIS beginning process as soon as, or technically two times, at Kansas State, relying on whom you ask. He used to be rarely the preferred choose to take the reins of a loaded Ohio State group when the Buckeyes plucked him out of the switch portal in past due 2023. He got here beneath fireplace from critics throughout the 2024 season when the Buckeyes suffered losses at Oregon and at house to Michigan.
However Howard has noticed harder instances. In 2020, he used to be a freshman at Kansas State residing 1,200 miles clear of his house in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, remoted and residing by myself as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. He had arrived on campus in January 2020 as an early enrollee, went house for spring wreck and could not go back till June. When he were given again, he stuck COVID. Howard anticipated to redshirt.
He used to be thrust into the beginning process within the fourth recreation of the 2020 season when Skylar Thompson suffered a season-ending upper-body damage. Howard’s first get started used to be at TCU, in opposition to trainer Gary Patterson, one of the crucial height defensive minds in soccer, and despite the fact that the Wildcats received that day in large part as a result of their protection after which beat Kansas at house the next week, Howard knew he used to be overmatched. And he used to be proper. Kansas State misplaced its ultimate 5 video games of the season.
“Will all the time has an air about him that is assured,” Kansas State trainer Chris Klieman mentioned. “That is something I all the time loved — despite the fact that he had a anxiousness or anxiousness to one thing, guy, he did not let it display. I believe our gamers, particularly our older youngsters, in point of fact favored that this child’s were given self belief entering the huddle with a host of fifth-year guys and pronouncing, ‘All proper, we are going to move down and ranking.’
“That is what I believe units him aside at this time from numerous other people is the boldness and the conclusion that child has in himself as a result of the adversity that he confronted. There have been some video games he did not play rather well as a real freshman. Is smart; he hadn’t had the reps. However I do know he realized such a lot from it.”
Howard served as Thompson’s backup the next season, then began 3 video games when Thompson used to be injured. He figured to be the Wildcats’ starter as a junior, however in December 2021, Kansas State added former Nebraska quarterback Adrian Martinez during the switch portal. 9 months later, Kansas State named Martinez the starter.
The verdict so as to add Martinez from the portal made Howard offended. It made him need to go away. However he revered Martinez for his resiliency in spite of everything the wounds and grievance he withstood throughout 4 years as a starter at Nebraska, and for the best way he treated his switch.
Martinez did not are available in barking out orders, Howard mentioned. He took the time to get to understand everybody, put within the paintings and used to be respectful. Martinez in flip favored Howard’s professionalism.
“It by no means appeared like he held a grudge in opposition to me,” Martinez mentioned. “It by no means appeared like he felt sour about that scenario, which I believe would had been really easy to do.
“It is a kind of attention-grabbing dynamics the place you move from being very aggressive and splitting reps to unexpectedly any individual is the starter and you’ve got to do the entirety you’ll be able to to strengthen that man. And I felt that strengthen from Will. We might learn about tape in combination. We had each and every different’s backs. It felt like we have been brothers, you understand? And I nonetheless really feel that approach about Will. I believe he is an incredible teammate.”
They changed into street roommates, and Howard would all the time wreck the stress ahead of a large recreation by way of cracking jokes. Halfway during the 2022 season, the jobs reversed when Martinez used to be knocked out of the TCU recreation with an damage. Howard led the Wildcats to a 48-0 house win in opposition to Oklahoma State the next week with 4 touchdowns and 296 passing yards. Martinez regained his beginning process the following recreation in opposition to Texas however suffered a leg damage every week later at Baylor.
At the back of Howard, the Wildcats received their ultimate 3 regular-season video games, putting in place a Large XII rematch in opposition to TCU. Howard finished 18 of 32 passes for 2 touchdowns to buoy Okay-State to a 31-28 extra time win. The following fall, with the beginning process in any case his, he threw for two,643 yards with 24 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. However true freshman Avery Johnson, an in-state quarterback, seemed in 8 video games and inspired, throwing 5 landing passes and working for seven rankings.
On the finish of the 2023 steady season, Howard mentioned, he talked with Klieman in regards to the long run. Howard used to be about to graduate with some extent in accounting, however he had every other yr of eligibility and had contemplated whether or not he will have to input the NFL draft or keep in New york. Klieman, he mentioned, informed him that if he got here again, he’d need to compete with Johnson for the beginning process. (Klieman declined to remark at the dialog).
Howard mentioned he feels no in poor health will towards Kansas State — his more youthful brother Ryan Howard is an offensive lineman there — and that he is nonetheless shut with the training personnel. However the departure from Kansas State motivated him and made him understand that without reference to the way you play, “you by no means actually make it.”
“Do I want they’d have believed in me and sought after me to stick?” he mentioned. “Would I’ve even stayed? I do not know. I believe I roughly were given the entirety out of that have for myself. I believe I wanted a brand new trail regardless. However the truth that they sought after to head in another course, yeah, it pissed me off.”
Ohio State trainer Ryan Day says he does not generally herald a quarterback for only one season, however mentioned Howard has “an infectious character” and will lead. CFP/Getty Photographs
IN THE WINTER of 2023, Ohio State trainer Ryan Day used to be in search of a transformation, too. His group had misplaced to its rival Michigan for the 0.33 instantly time, a recreation that knocked the Buckeyes out of the Faculty Soccer Playoff.
Kyle McCord used to be Ohio State’s starter that season, however he entered the switch portal in December after Day declined to mention whether or not McCord will be the beginning quarterback within the Cotton Bowl.
McCord, enjoying for one of the crucial superb soccer groups within the nation, post higher statistics than Howard in 2023. However Day noticed a competitor in Howard. He favored his dimension, power and footwork. He used to be inspired by way of one of the throws Howard made within the crimson zone however knew that ahead of he got here to any conclusions, he had to have the quarterback on campus.
“The minute you meet him,” Day mentioned, “you simply acknowledge that one, he is were given an infectious character. I imply, he can lead other people, and that used to be essential. Then we began speaking soccer. He is vivid. He may recall performs; he may verbalize what he had carried out in video games. It used to be like chatting with an NFL participant. By the point I were given carried out with that dialog, that received me over greater than the rest.”
Day mentioned he does not generally herald a quarterback for one season in a must-win-now scenario. The whole thing needed to have compatibility together with his gifted, prideful group. The force used to be on Day — the force is all the time on Day — however it used to be additionally heaped on Howard.
Howard used to be so enthralled by way of the travel that he informed Day he had him, he used to be all-in. Howard informed the trainer he would not let him down, informed him one thing to the impact of, “Let’s move win all of it.”
Again house in Pennsylvania, Howard’s mother used to be skeptical. “Are you positive you wish to have to try this?” she requested him.
Howard knew it used to be the problem he wanted if he used to be ever going to play within the NFL. Inside a couple of days of his recruiting travel, he used to be again on campus, in a position to head.
He adopted the blueprint that Martinez had left him a yr previous: Be humble, get to understand everybody and paintings exhausting.
“I am freaking working sprints after I first were given there, and I used to be so out of form,” Howard mentioned. “I take note throwing up as I am working, however I used to be identical to, ‘I am not sitting out.’
“I take note Trainer Day coming within the weight room someday and [saying] ‘I would like you to be the man that we will be able to glance to on fourth down and we want a backyard. You want to be that man that is going so to move get that. And you want to turn out that to everybody so everybody on this development is aware of that you will be that man.'”
Heart Seth McLaughlin, an Alabama switch who additionally joined Ohio State in 2024 with only one yr of eligibility left, mentioned the Buckeyes went from the Cotton Bowl loss again to paintings, pushed to erase the ones late-season recollections. A half-dozen of them can have long past to the NFL, however they returned with one goal: to win the name that eluded them in 2023.
All eyes have been at the novices, McLaughlin mentioned, observing and comparing them. He mentioned it used to be extra essential for them to be depended on than favored.
Howard sought after each. He sought after to be challenged, and Day examined him lots within the spring. He attempted to create situations to rattle Howard. You’ll be able to’t throw interceptions at Ohio State, he’d inform Howard. The arena would come to an finish if he did.
Each time Day would hammer Howard on one thing he did fallacious, Howard would temporarily answer, “Sure sir, I were given you.”
“And he hated after I mentioned that,” Howard mentioned. “He’d be like, ‘You do not were given me!'”
However Howard’s simple demeanor served him smartly in heated scenarios, such because the early November recreation in opposition to No. 3 Penn State. His teammates knew how essential that recreation used to be to Howard, enjoying in his house state. On his first snap, Howard threw a pick-six. McLaughlin mentioned Howard got here again to the sideline and evenly informed the group, “Hello, that is on me.”
The following collection, he led the Buckeyes on a 74-yard landing power.
“That choose by no means affected him, particularly in that emotional setting,” McLaughlin mentioned. “That used to be roughly the instant it clicked for me. I am like, ‘Holy crap, this man’s particular.'”
The highs and lows have been whiplash-inducing. 3 weeks previous, in Eugene, Oregon, Howard used to be skewered for his clock control within the waning moments in opposition to the Geese. He dropped again to go with six seconds to head on third-and-20, seeking to get his group in discipline purpose place. He scrambled up the center for 12 yards, then slid within the 30-yard line. However the clock had expired, sealing a 32-31 loss. Howard put his palms on his head. He idea he’d hit the bottom with one moment left.
After the sport, Howard, who finished 28 of 35 passes that night time for 326 yards and two touchdowns, mentioned he walked during the locker room and hugged each participant. He blamed himself for the loss. “My dangerous,” he informed his teammates.
The web exploded with memes and jokes. McLaughlin mentioned they “absolutely discredited the good recreation he performed up till that time.”
The group were given again from Eugene early the following morning, and Howard could not consume or sleep and did not know what to do. So he dropped his luggage at the turf of Ohio State’s indoor facility, propped his head at the luggage and stared on the ceiling.
“I used to be praying,” he mentioned, “chatting with God, you understand. Why me? Why does this stay going down to me?”
He mentioned it used to be a religious second, within the silence, and that he felt higher when he left.
The steady season ended with every other crushing low — a 13-10 loss to Michigan.
Every week later, the Buckeyes earned the No. 8 seed within the Faculty Soccer Playoff. Howard proceeded to place in combination the most productive four-game run of his occupation. He finished 75.2% of his passes for 1,150 yards, 8 touchdowns and a pair of interceptions.
After Ohio State’s 34-23 win in opposition to Notre Dame for the nationwide championship, Howard used to be named the offensive MVP.
He skipped the Senior Bowl to go back to Columbus and have fun together with his teammates. He knew the significance of the Senior Bowl and the have an effect on the week will have on a participant’s draft inventory, however he felt forced to be with the individuals who’d had such an have an effect on on him for the former 13 months.
There used to be a victory meal for the seniors and coaches at Hyde Park Top Steakhouse, and the gamers informed tales and laughed.
“It is nonetheless roughly surreal,” Howard mentioned.
Howard used to be booed throughout his passing exercise on the NFL mix in March however shrugged it off as having come from Michigan enthusiasts nonetheless sour over Ohio State successful the nationwide championship. Brooke Sutton/Getty Photographs
THERE ARE NO information that observe the worst efficiency within the historical past of the NFL mix. It wasn’t televised till 2004, when NFL Community began working parts of the exercises. It used to be round then {that a} small team of stories media used to be ready to look at the quarterbacks and vast receivers from within the facility.
Longtime NFL creator Rick Gosselin, who lined many combines, has no recollection of any performances that stood out sufficient to advantage the “worst-ever” moniker.
“There is anyone who is all the time going to run slower than anticipated,” Gosselin mentioned, “and it will be a large deal, after which come draft day, he will get drafted the place he used to be meant to get drafted ahead of the mix.
“The mix exercise is much overvalued, frankly.”
Former New York Jets common supervisor Mike Tannenbaum mentioned he by no means made a draft choice in keeping with a mix exercise. A excellent one sometimes can spice up draft inventory, he mentioned. However a nasty one cannot harm it. The one quarterback he recollects shifting the needle throughout a mix exercise used to be Justin Herbert, solidifying his status as a top-10 choose in 2020. The Chargers went on to choose him at No. 6.
Tannenbaum would give a quarterback credit score if he participated within the exercise, since many others do not anymore. Remaining yr, the highest 3 quarterbacks within the draft — Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye — went 1, 2 and three in spite of none of them taking part in on-field exercises.
Sanders and Cam Ward, this yr’s height quarterbacks, opted to skip the exercises too.
“Context is the entirety,” mentioned Tannenbaum, now an NFL analyst for ESPN. “[Howard] had a in point of fact excellent season. He performed for the most productive group this yr in an excessively, very aggressive convention. The sport movie is exponentially extra essential than a exercise the place you might be throwing to other people you have by no means thrown to ahead of.”
Tannenbaum, like numerous draft mavens, mentioned he thinks Howard will move someplace within the center rounds, to a group having a bet on his upside.
The 2025 quarterback elegance is thought of as skinny in comparison to fresh years, however ESPN draft analyst/insider Matt Miller mentioned that does not imply there may not be top call for.
Continuity on the place, he mentioned, has develop into a rarity. So has endurance.
“So you’ve gotten the dangerous groups that experience the younger quarterbacks,” he mentioned, “you’ve gotten the nice groups with the established ones and everybody else within the center. It is like they rotate years drafting quarterbacks.
“I believe the cool factor about this elegance is there is a center elegance at quarterback, which is one thing that is been lacking. There have not been the ones Spherical 2 or Spherical 3 gamers that would turn into starters. And that was once a not unusual factor. This quarterback elegance is wealthy in that center elegance of fellows like Will Howard.”
Draft mavens are cautious of Howard’s arm power and processing talent. On ESPN draft analyst Jordan Reid’s 2025 QB Scorching Board, he lists Howard because the eighth-best quarterback within the draft, writing that, “Lots of Howard’s warts display up when defenses accelerate his processing.”
Professional Soccer Focal point offers Howard a 50.9 beneath force grade, which ranks twenty seventh out of 56 draft-eligible quarterbacks.
Howard, unsurprisingly, is assured in his processing talent. On a mid-March Monday afternoon in Irvine, California, he used to be completing up a rooster enchilada and observing movie with Jake Tons, a former professional quarterback who’s coaching him within the days main as much as the draft. Tons is Russell Wilson’s non-public trainer.
Tons requested Howard to visit the board and draw up his favourite Duvet 2 beater, and Howard temporarily scribbled away on the play the Buckeyes used within the Rose Bowl, when Howard hit Emeka Egbuka with a 42-yard landing go down the center of the sphere.
“They’d numerous accept as true with in him,” Tons mentioned, “to take care of numerous, I might say, deep pro-style run exams in addition to audibles — from a run to a go, a go to a run. Those are all issues that NFL quarterbacks are requested to do, that now not a complete of school guys are requested to do.”
Howard celebrates together with his circle of relatives after a 41-21 win in opposition to Oregon within the Faculty Soccer Playoff quarterfinal on the Rose Bowl. The Buckeyes went directly to defeat Texas and Notre Dame to assert the nationwide championship. Courtesy Howard Circle of relatives
IT WAS THE ultimate week of March, and Bob and Maureen Howard have been using down the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Columbus, Ohio, on tips on how to Will’s professional day at Ohio State. Their youngest daughter, Grace, sat quietly within the backseat in their white SUV.
The circle of relatives generally listens to true-crime podcasts on those lengthy drives, and there were a lot of them in Will’s faculty occupation.
Professional day could be other from the mix, with Howard throwing to acquainted receivers in a scripted exercise. And Howard would now not disappoint, hitting 65 of his 67 throws with two drops. The web would exclaim, “Will Howard shines in professional day exercise!”
Bob and Maureen, like their son, take a look at to not get too stuck up in any explicit pre-draft tournament. However it is exhausting now and again. In a telephone interview throughout their power, the Howards most well-liked to concentrate on more effective instances. Like how Will used to stroll round sporting a ball at all times, they mentioned. Grace could not pronounce his identify when she used to be little, so she referred to as him “Ball.”
He realized the cello and trombone as a kid, and he all the time sought after to play the music from the Peanuts Christmas particular at the piano. However he did not understand how to play the piano, so one snowy day when he used to be in particular bored, he sat down and taught himself to play. He scored a 1,380 on his SAT and were given his grasp’s level in sports activities training in three hundred and sixty five days at Ohio State.
And oh, here is a a laugh truth: Will used to be the muse for an invention. He used to be a big child, Maureen mentioned, and broke out of his swaddle early. He may sleep for hours when being driven round in a stroller, however in a crib, he’d get up cranky after half-hour. Maureen, a pediatric bodily therapist, designed a strong strengthen outfit to assist him sleep. It labored, and he or she and Bob jokingly referred to as it the magic sleepsuit.
After their moment kid, Tori, used to be born, they pulled it out once more, and other people in her mother teams have been asking about it. She made a couple of extra prototypes whilst Bob, who is in finance, began researching swaddle transition merchandise and located a necessity. They sooner or later were given a patent for Child Merlin’s Magic Sleepsuit. They operated out in their house, which changed into a real circle of relatives trade — Will and his siblings even helped make up somewhat meeting line.
Bob and Maureen bought the trade in 2021, which used to be excellent as a result of they have got had numerous soccer video games to wait.
Will and his circle of relatives will watch the draft at house in Downingtown, and it is going to be a modest collecting. However they have got booked house at their favourite eating place on the town for a birthday party on Saturday night time, in spite of everything the names are referred to as, and plan to have fun Howard’s new vacation spot.
The professional finish of the draft season may well be purpose for party, too.
