Ohio State didn’t exactly pick an ideal time to find out what life looks like without Julian Sayin.

The Buckeyes just escaped Indiana, 19–15, snapping the defending national champions’ 22-game winning streak. They're 6–1, unbeaten in Big Ten play, and ranked No. 3 heading into their bye week. Normally, that’s when a coach gets to breathe and start looking ahead.

Instead, Ryan Day has to figure out who can keep the offense moving while Sayin’s throwing arm heals.

Sayin hurt his arm on a fourth-quarter sack in Bloomington and came back to the sideline wearing a sling. On Monday, Day said Sayin would miss “at least several weeks” as he goes through more testing. That’s all that’s been confirmed so far. There’s no announced surgery and no firm return date.

What the Buckeyes do know is what’s waiting on the other side of the bye: a trip to No. 16 USC on Halloween. Oregon comes to Columbus the following week, and Michigan is waiting at the end of November.

So this isn’t just a week to rest and get healthy. It’s Ohio State’s first real chance to figure out what they can ask of their next quarterback before a ranked opponent asks the same question under the brightest lights.

Fahey Leads — but the Week Is Far From Over

Luke Fahey is the obvious place to start. Day had already made him the first quarterback off the bench before Sayin got hurt. Back in September, Day said Fahey had earned that trust through his work in the building, while also making it clear that Tavien St. Clair was close enough to keep pushing.

That held up on Saturday. When Sayin went down with a little more than eight minutes left, Fahey went in.

It wasn’t exactly a fair audition, either. A true freshman was thrown into a four-point game on the road against a top-five team, with the offense facing second-and-28 after the sack that injured Sayin. Fahey scrambled for eight yards and drew a personal foul that kept the drive alive. His two official passes fell incomplete. On the next possession, an intentional-grounding penalty helped put Ohio State in a third-and-24 hole.

Day said afterward that the moment “wasn’t too big” for Fahey, even if the game was moving fast for him. Both things can be true. The scramble showed Fahey wasn’t rattled. The passing downs showed how much tougher the job gets when a young quarterback has to come in cold and figure out a defense that’s spent the afternoon hitting the starter.

Fahey’s season line is 9-for-13 for 203 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. It’s easy to look at those 203 yards and start making predictions. That would be getting ahead of things. Most of his previous work came in comfortable wins over Ball State and Kent State, and one of his 75-yard touchdowns against Kent State came on a screen. That play counts, obviously. It just doesn’t tell us much about whether he can stand in against USC and consistently throw the ball downfield.

St. Clair brings a different set of questions. He’s 6-foot-4 to Fahey’s 5-foot-11 and came in as a five-star prospect after throwing for more than 10,000 yards in high school. His college resume is even thinner: five completions on seven attempts for 52 yards, a touchdown, and an interception this season. His recruiting background doesn’t mean he should automatically start, but Fahey’s late-game snaps at Indiana don’t settle the debate, either.

Then there’s Justyn Martin, the senior transfer who started once for UCLA in 2024 and completed 22 of 30 passes for 167 yards against Penn State. He has experience the younger quarterbacks don’t, though he hasn’t thrown a pass for Ohio State this season.

The Line Has to Be Part of the Answer

Ohio State can’t spend two weeks debating quarterbacks and ignore why Sayin got hurt in the first place.

Indiana sacked him hard. The Hoosiers finished with four sacks and the Buckeyes managed 78 net rushing yards, going 6-for-15 on third down. Bo Jackson had 56 yards on 18 carries. Isaiah West added 45 on six carries, including a 22-yarder. There were some good moments, but Ohio State never found a reliable way to stay ahead of the chains.

And this isn’t a brand-new concern. In last season’s Big Ten title game against Indiana, Ohio State gave up five sacks and rushed for 58 net yards. They lost 13–10, then scored just 14 points in their playoff loss to Miami. The players and coordinator have changed, but the same question keeps showing up against strong fronts: Can Ohio State protect their quarterback and run the ball well enough when the easy yards aren’t there?

The line has had to deal with changes on the right side this season, including Phillip Daniels missing four games after getting hurt at Texas. He came back against Indiana, but that game made one thing pretty clear: putting familiar names on the field won’t fix everything by itself. A new quarterback will need cleaner pockets and a run game that gives him something better than third-and-long.

That doesn’t mean Arthur Smith should call 40 handoffs and hope Jackson carries the afternoon. Indiana showed exactly what can happen with that approach near the goal line. The Buckeyes couldn’t punch it in on the ground and finally scored when Sayin found Jackson in the flat on fourth down. A useful run game isn’t just about piling up carries. It’s about making the defense hesitate and giving the quarterback a clear place to throw.

The bye gives them time to help shape things around the new starter. They can keep a tight end or back in protection when the matchup calls for it. They can move the launch point and build early-down calls that don’t leave Fahey trying to rescue second-and-12. The bigger point is simple: whoever starts at quarterback deserves an offense built to handle the problems Ohio State just ran into.

Getting Jeremiah Smith the Ball Can’t Become a Hopeful Heave

The other part of this job is easier to identify and a lot harder to pull off: keep Jeremiah Smith dangerous.

Through seven games, Smith has 52 catches for 984 yards and 12 touchdowns, including his four-catch, 68-yard performance at Indiana. That’s already an absurd start. His 38-yard touchdown tied Braylon Edwards’ Big Ten career record with 39 receiving scores.

That touchdown is both the best argument for Ohio State’s ceiling and a reminder not to take any of this for granted. On fourth-and-1, with Indiana expecting Ohio State to pick up the first down, Sayin gave Smith a chance deep. Smith went up between two defenders and made the kind of catch that can flip a game. He later admitted he’d run the wrong route. It still worked because those two have built an unusual level of trust, and because Smith can make even a broken play look brilliant.

A freshman can’t be expected to recreate that chemistry in 10 practice days. He also can’t spend the game treating Smith like a decoy and only looking for him when the Buckeyes are desperate on fourth down.

Ohio State can make things easier for their next quarterback by finding simple ways to get Smith involved: motion to show the coverage, a quick throw when a defender gives him room, or a designed touch that lets Smith do what he does best after the catch.

The Buckeyes also need Chris Henry Jr., Brandon Inniss, Phillip Bell, and the tight ends to make defenses pay for leaning toward No. 4. Henry’s two catches for 51 yards at Indiana were a useful reminder that someone else can win when Smith starts drawing extra attention.

But simplifying the throws can’t mean giving up on the deep ball. If USC can crowd Smith and sit on every short route, Ohio State will have made things easier for the defense, not their quarterback. The staff needs to find a handful of downfield concepts their starter can run with confidence.

Smith doesn’t need 15 different routes to stay explosive. He needs a quarterback who’s willing and able to give him a chance on the right ones.

Third Down Will Tell Us If This Works

The first scripted drive at USC might look clean enough. The real test will come after a run gains one yard and the quarterback gets third-and-7 with a safety rotating after the snap.

That’s when the difference between knowing the playbook and actually running the offense starts to show. Can Fahey identify pressure? Does he know where the answer is if Smith gets doubled? Can he take the easy five yards instead of turning a manageable punt or field goal into a sack? And when a defense starts sitting on the safe throw, can he make them pay?

Ohio State’s season numbers show how big the job is. Before the bye, the Buckeyes were averaging 39.3 points and 476.3 yards per game. Sayin had thrown for 2,007 yards and 19 touchdowns to four interceptions. The defense was giving up just 13.4 points per game. This team doesn’t need a freshman to turn into Sayin overnight to keep winning.

They do need an offense that can stay on the field. At Indiana, Ohio State’s defense forced turnovers and kept the game within reach, but the final score also hinged on Nick Marsh stepping out of bounds on what would’ve been a late Indiana touchdown. That’s a win worth celebrating. It’s also a pretty shaky way to plan for USC, Oregon, and the rest of a title chase.

Fahey gets the first chance to answer those questions. St. Clair and Martin give Day other options if practice points him in a different direction. Sayin’s timeline could change, but Ohio State can’t build their next two Saturdays around a date nobody's announced.

The Buckeyes are still a national-title contender. They’ve beaten two ranked teams on the road, they’re 4–0 in the Big Ten, and they have one of the best players in the sport. This week will show how much of that team their next quarterback can actually unlock.

All stats courtesy of Fantasy Points Data.

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