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The most interesting thing I heard Tuesday was Ryan Day dissecting Julian Sayin’s interception at Purdue.
In case you weren’t counting, Sayin is 203 for 251 for 2,491 yards this season with 24 touchdown passes and four interceptions.
That’s an 80% completion rate, which is amazing for one game by itself let along nine together.
It ranks No. 1 in the nation, of course, by more than eight points over Carson Beck of Miami (Fla.), and would shatter the Ohio State single-season record set… last year by Will Howard (73.0%).
Similarly, his QB rating of 192.6 is 14 points better than Fernando Mendoza of Indiana, who is second in the nation.
Sayin has thrown 24 touchdown passes and is averaging 9.9 yards per throw, which is second in the nation behind Notre Dame’s C.J. Carr (who is also a redshirt freshman, interestingly enough).
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I thought in the preseason he was not really someone who wows you with his stature or the way he throws the ball, though that certainly didn’t mean he couldn’t be a difference-maker when the lights went on for real.
He’s been producing “WOWs” with his precision passing and ability to evade the rush in games every week now, but that ill-advised late throw in the red zone in West Lafayette was a big no-no.
Turns out Sayin is not perfect after all?
At least he picked a good time to create a learning experience for himself.
"In that situation, we had a 17-play drive and like they're dropping eight. There's really no room in there. Like, you've probably got to check the ball down or run and maybe we play fourth down or maybe we kick the field goal.
But there's just so many bodies in the end zone when it's a three-man rush, that gets really hard. And if you're going to make that throw, it's got to be like really tall, top shelf, where only he can catch it, but those are the things that it's so hard to replicate and you got to learn, but he knew it.
The minute he knew it, he knew it. He came right over and that wasn't a situation where you start barking at somebody because he knows. Nobody want to take care of the ball better than him in that moment.”
OK, but then here’s the key part.
How does a coach use that moment for the good of the player and the team?
“But then if you overdo it, then all of a sudden guys get paralyzed and don't let it rip.
So you’ve got to let it rip, man, and every once in a while, bad things are going to happen. You got to come back from it. And I think to his credit, he’s kind of always stayed even keeled in that area. So again, bigger challenges ahead, but that's kind of where he's at.”
This reminded me of a story I did a long time ago for Buckeye Sports Bulletin about quarterbacks maturing as Terrelle Pryor was heading into his second year as a starter in 2009.
One of the people I talked to was Mike Tomczak, who not only was a good Ohio State quarterback who played in the NFL but also happened to play for Jim Tressel when Tressel was an assistant to Earle Bruce in the early 80s.
I remember asking him if Tressel stressed avoiding turnovers then the same way he did as a head coach, and Tomczak replied, “Yes, but that’s every coach.”
That has always stuck with me because it made me realize my perception was way off.
I guess I should have realized that, but I was a youngster still being exposed to all of the coaching tropes, still hearing people bemoan conservative play calling and longing for more fireworks while Tressel was mostly just worried about getting one more point than the other team.
For some reason, I thought up to that point, that was unique, but it really wasn’t.
Tressel wanted his quarterbacks to go for the big play when it was there, but there is a process to learning how to do it. That was true then and now, and it leads into the other big takeaway from that story sounded like something else Day said Tuesday:
“That’s the art of playing quarterback.”
Lots of guys can grew up and learn to avoid putting the ball in harm’s way, but that is no good if you’re not able to know when to push the envelope.
That’s all for today, but be sure and check out my early preview of UCLA if you missed it.
You can also find more of Ryan Day’s comments on my YouTube page, and if you’re thinking about getting into the newsletter game, I recommend using Beehiiv.
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