Julian Sayin Is Out Several Weeks With an Arm Injury: What It Means for Ohio State
Ohio State won at Indiana on Saturday and may have paid for it with its quarterback.
Julian Sayin left the 19-15 win in the fourth quarter after taking a hit from Indiana’s Mario Landino as he threw. His right arm got pinned awkwardly against his body. He jogged to the locker room and returned to the sideline with the arm in a sling.
Ryan Day did not have much afterward. “I don’t have a ton of details, but he’ll probably be out several weeks,” the Ohio State head coach said. “We’ll have to come up with a plan there.”
That is the entire official medical picture. Ohio State has released no diagnosis, no imaging result and no return date. Some outlets have put the word shoulder in headlines and others have said elbow, and the program has confirmed neither. Arm is the only word anyone should be using right now.
What Ohio State Loses
Quite a lot. Sayin, a redshirt sophomore and a team captain, finished fourth in Heisman voting last season after completing 77 percent of his passes for 3,610 yards with 32 touchdowns and eight interceptions.
Through six games this year he had been better. He was 116 of 163 for 1,772 yards, 17 touchdowns and two interceptions, averaging 10.9 yards per attempt with a 194.4 passer rating. Against Indiana he went 15 of 29 for 235 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions before exiting, including a 38-yard fourth-and-1 strike to Jeremiah Smith.
Arthur Smith calls the plays in his first year as coordinator. He now has to call them for somebody else.
The Backup Question Is Not Settled
Luke Fahey is the presumed answer, and that is as far as anybody should take it. Ohio State has not named a starter.
Fahey is a true freshman who enrolled in January and climbed to QB2 in preseason camp, passing former five-star Tavien St. Clair on the depth chart. He is 5-foot-11, 206 pounds, out of Mission Viejo, California, and graded as a three-star prospect in the Rivals industry ranking, higher by some services. His college work amounts to mop-up duty against Ball State and Kent State, where he completed nine of 11 attempts for 203 yards and two touchdowns.
His Indiana relief appearance was less encouraging: 0 for 2 passing, two carries for minus-2 yards, and no first downs with him on the field. St. Clair remains a live option, and a chunk of the Ohio State commentariat is openly arguing for him.
The Schedule Does the Buckeyes a Favor
Ohio State is off this Saturday. That bye is worth more than it usually is, because it buys two weeks of first-team reps for whoever wins the job before a trip to USC on Oct. 31.
Oregon follows on Nov. 7, then Northwestern, then Nebraska, then Michigan on Nov. 28. If “several weeks” means what it usually means, Sayin misses USC and Oregon and gets back for the stretch run. Nobody has confirmed that, and Day was careful not to imply it.
Where This Leaves Them
Ohio State is 6-1 and 4-0 in the Big Ten, with its only loss a 24-23 result at Texas in September. The Buckeyes moved up to No. 3 in the AP poll released Sunday and sit No. 2 in the coaches poll. The first College Football Playoff rankings do not arrive until Nov. 3.
A playoff spot is not in danger yet. A conference title and a No. 1 seed might be, and they are riding on a freshman who has thrown 11 passes against teams that matter very little.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
