Day Delays QB Decision To Another Day

Luke Fahey won the backup quarterback job in August. But will he be the long-term solution to lead the Buckeyes? Or will it be Tavien St. Clair? (Press Pros Feature Photos by Brian Bayless)

Luke Fahey or Tavien St. Clair will start for Ohio State on Saturday night against USC. Ryan Day’s choice will be the most anticipated college football news of the next few days.

Columbus, OH – Ryan Day hasn’t made his quarterback choice. He needs at least two more days of observation to see who wins the toughness battle.

Oh, the drama.

This pickle Day finds himself in, so presciently and profoundly penned and published early Tuesday morning by Press Pros publisher Sonny Fulks, is making all who have a stake pucker a little more.

Will Julian Sayin’s replacement be Luke Fahey, the precocious 5-foot-11 three-star freshman from Cali whose ability to make a good first impression is apparently elite?

Or will the position go to Tavien St. Clair, the five-star Ohio phenom from Bellefontaine with elite physical traits of 6-4, broad shoulders and arm strength?

“Both quarterbacks practiced well last week, which was good,” Day said Tuesday in front of a media gathering eager to learn his choice. “There was good energy … guys were rallying around both guys.”

Day’s decision could create ramifications for No. 2 Ohio State beyond Saturday against now-unranked USC in venerable Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and well beyond a lovely Southern California day. He already made Fahey the backup to start the season and called on him in a tight game at Indiana, making him the presumed next man up.

Coming out of spring practice, St. Clair, with a full season with the team behind him and his recruitment pedigree, was the assumed No. 2. Day hasn’t said why St. Clair slipped. He’s only praised Fahey for his moxie and other intangibles that don’t impact recruiting rankings.

The question Day must answer: Which quarterback not only gives the Buckeyes the best chance to win at USC, but which one projects as the best long-term solution?

If St. Clair, who looked more than competent in the spring game, doesn’t get an opportunity in a game against real competition when it matters, future Ohio quarterback recruits will be armed with lots of questions on their official visits.

What will Day say?

That will depend largely on what he says later this week when he runs out of time to decide.

Fahey and St. Clair will be the first to know, then the rest of the team. Every other Ohio State constituency must wait until no one knows when.

Day will speak briefly to the media after Wednesday night’s second practice this week. He might release his decision then, but only if he’s made it and the entire team knows.

He said the decision won’t be a secret. Unless news leaks out, we might learn Friday when he arrives at the team hotel. He’s usually available to answer a few questions in that setting.

Otherwise, pregame reps on the field will reveal the starter.

Until then, this situation will be fodder for writers, radio sports talk and podcasts.

And we wait.

“We’ll keep working this week and keep working on packages for both guys,” Day said. “Like I said before, Luke was ahead of Tavien going into the Indiana game, but both guys are working hard, so we’ll see how the next couple days go.

“They’ve both been really into it, and practice was good last week. We need to stack a few more days, and then we’ll go into the game and figure out what gives us the best chance to win.”

Day said the No. 1 separator will be toughness. Not who puffs out his chest the most. Not who yells the loudest. And not swagger.

But toughness to play hard, take a hit and get back up and to be mentally and emotionally unmoved by the ups and downs. The even-keel, no-blink, laugh-in-the-face-of-danger – at least the one who leans that way the most – will get the call. And the job will be his to lose.

“It’s going to take everything we have, and it’s going to start with the quarterback,” Day said. “And if you’re saying, give me one thing, that’s toughness.”

Toughness might win the job, but it will take more to keep it. Day demands each of his QBs make the routine plays routinely and keep the offense on an advantageous down-and-distance schedule.

“Can’t make bad situations worse,” he said.

Day said both quarterbacks might play, but it’s difficult to believe he will start the game with a scripted plan to do so. He’s tried to experiment with packages for backups in the past, but he never gave it a fighting chance. Poor performance will be required for this week’s No. 2 to play anything more than a mop-up role.

Sayin is a captain and a de facto leader anyway as the quarterback. His absence will change the leadership dynamic on offense. To a man, if you could talk to them all, they would all say everyone must step up.

“Julian had a great season of work, not only growing in his playing style but his leadership, so that’ll definitely be missing on the field,” senior center Carson Hinzman said. “However, we’ve got a lot of great leaders who’ve had a lot of reps in a ton of adverse situations. So for us to step up as leaders is going to be really important. But not only for us, but even for the different position group leaders it’s going to be huge so we can take one piece off the quarterback’s plate.”

Whoever starts will face a similar circumstance as Sayin in the 2025 season opener against Texas. Day didn’t fill Sayin’s plate that day, and he’s likely to approach a midseason game at USC the same way.

Day will count on and demand much from Fahey or St. Clair or both. In addition, similar to what Hinzman said about leadership, Day will be looking for the rest of the team to play its best game. A new QB can’t be an excuse with the Big Ten title and deep playoff runs as perpetual goals.

That means the offensive line, whether Austin Siereveld returns or not, is being pushed this week like never before. The running backs, challenged publicly a few times this season, are being pushed to pass block better and break more tackles.

The defense, as strong as it’s been, is surely getting the message of “you’ve got to be the ones to win this game.” Especially if senior end Kenyatta Jackson Jr. and freshman phenom defensive back Jay Timmons don’t return from injuries.

“We got to be on our game more and more,” Day said. “The margin for error certainly has tightened up, there’s no question. You have to do your job. You can’t do anything more than that, but the margins just got like this.”

And Day held up his hands a few inches apart to show how much the margins have closed.

His hands also represent the shrinking time he has left to make what might prove to be this season’s most important decision.

The clock is ticking … whose time will it be?