Ohio State QB Julian Sayin Earns Prestigious Honor As Freshman of the Year
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2025 is the year of redshirt freshman quarterback Julian Sayin in Columbus, OH.
In the past 12 months, Sayin went from being a relative unknown to the 2025 Shaun Alexander Freshman of the Year Award winner.
As Ryan Day hoisted the 2024 National Championship trophy in Atlanta one year ago, the clock began to tick for Sayin. Will Howard was leaving the program in a much better place than where he found it, but there was a hole at the quarterback position.
People whispered, rumors swirled that the kid who was set to step in and take the position had the potential to be the next great one. No one could have predicted it would go this well for Sayin.
Sayin won the quarterback position during fall camp in what was a relatively even battle between him and Lincoln Kienholz, and his reward? Yeah, his reward was a first career start against the No. 1 team in the country.
He handled it as well as you could expect a first-time starter to. He went out and did enough for the Buckeyes to come away with a win and start their season 1-0.
From that point forward, he never looked back. week after week, Sayin stacked good performances on top of each other and got better each week. He put it all together in a two-game stretch against Wisconsin and Penn State, where he was 56-65 (86 percent) for 709 yards, eight touchdowns, and zero interceptions.
Then, he went and led the Buckeyes into Ann Arbor for his biggest test to date and answered the last question that everyone had for him. Could he respond to adversity?
The answer was a resounding yes, as he got off to the worst start possible. His first throw was an incompletion to Carnell Tate and then an interception on his second throw to Jeremiah Smith. After that, he caught fire for the Buckeyes.
He finished that game 19-26 for 233 yards and three touchdowns to go along with his interception. He was special on that day and showed everyone in the country that he could be successful for the Buckeyes.
On the year, Sayin finished completing 78 percent of his passes for 3,323 yards, 31 touchdowns, and six interceptions. He finished third in the voting for the Heisman Trophy and, most importantly, set the Buckeeys up for a run at repeating as the National Champions.
The Shaun Alexander Freshman of the Year is awarded to the most outstanding freshman player in college football. No one is more deserving than the award and Sayin earned every bit of it.
Next up for the most outstanding freshman is a run to the National Championship. If he can do that in his first year as the starting quarterback in Columbus, then he may very well have put together the best season out of any Ohio State quarterback in a very long time, maybe even ever.
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