The modern college football quarterback market has changed so much that the old model feels almost quaint now.
Five years ago, the idea was still simple: sign a high school quarterback, develop him, let him wait, then hand him the offense when his time came. That path still exists, but more and more major programs are leaning on a different answer - one built around proven transfers who can walk in and play immediately.
Ohio State has benefited from that route before. Justin Fields arrived in 2019 and promptly put up more than 3,200 passing yards with 51 total touchdowns. Ryan Day went back to the transfer well again in 2024 with Will Howard, and that move ended with a National Championship.
Even so, the Buckeyes have mostly kept betting on the prep ranks. Julian Sayin technically transferred from Alabama, but he was in Tuscaloosa for less than two weeks and had already been heavily recruited by Day out of high school. He was developed in Columbus before winning the starting job in 2025.
The issue for Ohio State is that the homegrown approach has produced far more misses than hits.
If Sayin is included, Day has really only landed two quarterbacks who came straight to Columbus from high school and became clear successes: Sayin and C.J. Stroud from the 2020 class. The rest of the list is much messier.
Kyle McCord was productive at Syracuse, but not the kind of quarterback Ohio State needed him to be. Quinn Ewers could have started in Columbus, but he chose not to sit behind Stroud, who went on to throw for nearly 4,700 yards and 41 touchdowns during Ewers’ first season at Texas in 2022. Devin Brown, Lincoln Kienholz, and the others in that group never really became answers for the Buckeyes.
Kienholz remains the one name with some uncertainty attached to him. He looked good in his first game action at Louisville on Sunday night, but he was never going to take the job from a second-year Sayin.
And the current roster only adds to the conversation. Ohio State landed five-star Tavien St.
Clair in the 2025 class, and he was supposed to be the next man up behind Sayin. Instead, he did not even appear to have locked down the backup job this season, with 2026 signee Luke Fahey the first quarterback off the bench in the opener against Ball State.
There is still plenty of time for St. Clair to grow into that role, but it is at least notable that a former blue-chip recruit is not clearly No. 2 this early in his career.
That broader uncertainty is why the question keeps getting louder: if the hits are elite, but the misses pile up faster, what should the strategy be moving forward?
The trend across the sport points in one direction. Last year’s College Football Playoff semifinal teams - Indiana, Oregon, Ole Miss and Miami - were all starting transfer quarterbacks. Fernando Mendoza, a Cal transfer, led Indiana to a national title over Georgia transfer Carson Beck, who had already beaten Ohio State in the quarterfinals.
That same pattern has carried into 2026. Five of the top 10 teams in the preseason AP Top 25 are starting transfer quarterbacks.
The high school quarterbacks at the top are still outstanding. Sayin at Ohio State, CJ Carr at Notre Dame, Arch Manning at Texas and Marcel Reed at Texas A&M are all among the best in the country. But the transfer group is loaded too, with Dante Moore going from UCLA to Oregon, Josh Hoover moving from TCU to Indiana and Darian Mensah going from Duke to Miami.
So the real question is whether big programs should keep spending the time and money to chase high school quarterbacks at the same level they always have.
In the NIL era, does it make more sense to spend $3M-$5 on a proven transfer who can deliver right away? Or would a program rather invest $1M-$3M in a high school prospect who might need a year or two to develop, might not translate at the next level, and could leave before ever getting the chance to play?
For Ohio State, that tension is especially real. The Buckeyes have only turned to transfers when they had to.
Fields came in because they did not believe in Tate Martell. Howard arrived because McCord was not good enough in 2023.
That made the transfer quarterback a fallback, not a philosophy. But maybe that is changing.
Ohio State and Ryan Day will keep landing elite recruits. Brady Edmunds is committed in the 2027 class, and Christopher Vargas, the nation’s top quarterback, is committed in the 2028 class. Talent has never been the problem.
The problem is that not every blue-chip high school quarterback becomes the answer. And if there is a chance to get someone who has already shown he can do it at this level, it is fair to wonder whether that is the smarter way to spend the resources.
In Other News...
Former Buckeyes Are Already Making Ohio State Fans Look Twice
The early weeks of the college football season always bring a little extra curiosity when former Ohio State players turn up in new uniforms, and this latest update has plenty for Buckeyes fans to track. Lincoln Kienholz made his first career start at Louisville, while Hero Kanu has started to settle in at Texas and Malik Hartford has been part of the rotation at UCLA, giving each of them a chance to show what kind of impact they can have away from Columbus.
For Ohio State followers, the appeal is less about nostalgia than about seeing how these transfers are fitting into bigger roles elsewhere. The weekly check-in includes production and Pro Football Focus grades from recent games, a useful snapshot of who is thriving and who is still finding a rhythm as the season moves along. It is the kind of roundup that can make fans do a double take, especially when a familiar name starts showing up as a real contributor in another programs lineup. [Read more 🡒]
Ohio State May Have Found The Weapon Jeremiah Smith Needed
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McCuin backed that up in his Ohio State debut against Ball State, catching six passes for 97 yards and a touchdown. It was the kind of opening act that suggests there may be more here than just a useful depth addition, especially for a Buckeyes offense still sorting out how its pieces fit together. If McCuin keeps showing the same speed, route running and toughness Day praised, Ohio State may have found exactly the kind of target Jeremiah Smith can lean on. [Read more 🡒]
Ohio State Walks Into A Texas Atmosphere Test Fans Can Feel
Ohio States trip to Austin has plenty of football reasons to command attention, starting with a matchup against Texas that already feels like one of the early measuring-stick games of the season. The Buckeyes go in led by quarterback Julian Sayin and wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, and the focus around them is not just on talent, but on how a young offense handles a road setting that should look and sound nothing like a normal September Saturday.
Matthew McConaughey, a visible Texas supporter, spent time on ESPN talking about the setting and the kind of test Ohio State should expect at DKR. The larger point is clear enough for the Buckeyes: this is the sort of atmosphere that can squeeze every mistake, reward every surge, and turn the smallest communication issue into a bigger problem. For Ohio State, surviving the crowd may be almost as important as surviving the Longhorns. [Read more 🡒]