Ohio State has lots of new faces on its 2025 team. Chief among them is brand-new QB Julian Sayin. He will lead an offense that’s coming hot after a national championship win. Ryan Day saw some of those 2024 game-winning factors leave OSU, like losing Jim Knowles over a contract fallout. The baseline is that this Ohio State team is not the same one from 2025. A lot of new elements, Sayin included, will add their own flavors to the recipe that’ll shape the Buckeyes’ 2025 campaign. The roster looks impeccable; there’s no doubt about it. But about these brand-new faces, experts have some hesitations.

“[They] understood that this was going to be a new year,” Ryan Day told Josh Pate about his 2025 team. The HC lauded the fresh mindset in the locker room, which employed an interesting strategy. Day revealed that the newer guys had asked him for the staff to take down all that National Championship pomp and fanfare from the facility. “[They’re] like, ‘We didn’t win a national championship. The last group did.’” And leading this visibly new Ohio State team is Julian Sayin, the new face of the program. He is likely to replace Will Howard, the man who ran the show on the field. But unlike Howard, Sayin is far less experienced. And let’s just say the jury will still be out when it comes to deciding on a clear future for the new QB.

“We got a pretty good feeling [he’s] going to be the guy,” Jake Crain said in a May 20 episode of Crain & Company. But he also pointed out where the QB can stand to fall. “Not a lot of experience at all, young, hasn’t gone through the ups and downs, and you have a new offensive coordinator.”

And that’s not all. What could stand to be a wrinkle in the new offense is that sharp difference between Sayin and the extremely elite WR group. “When you have guys like Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate and bringing in Max Klare from Purdue, who we know is really talented, how many of the easy, fastballs are you going to try and give Julian Sayin early? And how much do you protect him with the run game and easy throws?”

“I don’t think Texas is going to go out there and line up in man coverage against Jeremiah Smith and give Julian Sayin an easy out,” Crain theorized. In what is going to be the biggest game of the season, Sayin will be facing an equally formidable Texas defense. And not to forget, his more famous counterpart, Arch Manning. Sayin is going to be a prime target for Texas, as will be Smith and the WRs. But the QB is the new guy in the line. It’s not impossible to think that Sayin turns out to be the weak link. That’s simply because of how foreign he is to the whole situation.

That’s why the QB needs to build a rapport with the WR group that can play out naturally. He has an excellent set of guys who can support him with great ease. The goal is to now formally settle into the red and white colors. Sayin has to know the team and its dynamics like the back of his hand. Speaking of new elements, Ryan Day has both a brand new OC and DC, which will definitely affect the way the team looks. That will also be compared to its national championship-winning version. And there’s still a lot to work on for people to have full confidence in these new coaches.

Ryan Day’s new staff is also facing a test this year

Matt Patricia will be taking over a defense that was last designed by Jim Knowles. After creating a top-ranking defensive side, how well is Patricia looking to keep up the trend? “How much is Matt Patricia gonna differentiate from what they had last year that worked a lot with some of these same pieces? That’s what I’m waiting to see,” Crain said. Will he begin building the defense from scratch? Or will he carry on with Knowles’ style and add his own touch to it? Caleb Downs, Sonny Styles, and Jermain Mathews Jr.—these are all important players returning, and they come from the Knowles defense.

Brian Hartline, too, will face a similarly challenging situation. Blain Crain pointed out that how the OC deals with troubles early on in the game will be important. “If it’s not going great early, what’s your change-up? What’s your off-speed pitch? How do you adjust to a new quarterback to get his confidence up? Do you rely more on the running game? […] I’m interested to see how Brian Hartline is going to go about making his calls on certain plays in certain moments. Because I promise you, as much as Texas might have lost on defense, they probably have one, if not the best, front-seven in college football.” Blain said. Some key names on the Texas D-line are Ethan Burke and Trey Moore.

Ryan Day has made quite the gamble for his 2025 run. One is worth $4.5 million, the combined salaries of both his assistant coaches. And the other is headlining a QB with little experience for an offense that looked mighty in 2024. Can they all pay off in the upcoming season?