Julian Sayin Analysis

Zach Smith · 2026-08-31T23:50:46+00:00

Eleven Scrambles Ohio State's quarterback threw for 3,610 yards and 32 touchdowns and graded out as the best passer I studied all offseason. He also ran out of the pocket eleven times in fourteen games, and none of them came in the Orange Bowl. By Zach Smith Two minutes left. Down eight. Everybody's covered. He steps up. And there it is, right in front of him: grass. Nobody within eight yards. The first down is a jog. Run it. Slide. Move the chains and let's go win this thing. He throws it away. That's Julian Sayin in the fourth quarter of a playoff game, and it's the single most frustrating snap I watched from any quarterback this year. Not because it was hard. Because it was easy, and he wouldn't take it. Eleven all year PFF had him down for eleven scrambles in 2025. Eleven. For 48 total yards. Against Miami, with his pocket falling apart on him all night, he had zero. No carries, designed or otherwise. I studied twenty-five minutes of that film and never once saw him leave the pocket to keep a play breathing. I've brought this up in every breakdown I've done this summer. Chambliss, Dante Moore, Mensah, all of it. So let's put the whole thing in one place with the numbers behind it, because the rest of his season deserves better than the way it ended. The season was outstanding and I'm not burying that 392 attempts. 301 completions. 76.8%. 3,610 yards at 9.2 a pop. Thirty-two touchdowns, eight picks. A 92.9 offensive grade. The number I care about most: 23 big-time throws against six turnover-worthy plays. Six. On more than 400 dropbacks. That's a 1.4% rate and it's the best of anybody I charted this offseason. His receivers dropped six balls all year. He might be the most accurate quarterback in college football and I've said that since spring. He also went on a run from Minnesota through Purdue where he graded 91.5, 86.0, 89.5, 92.6 and 90.9. The Penn State game was 20-of-23 for 316 and four touchdowns. They wasted his best throw Twenty-plus yards downfield: 50 attempts, 1,196 yards, thirteen touchdowns, one interception. A 97.3 grade. Nineteen of those fifty were big-time throws. Thirteen of his thirty-two scores came on deep balls and he gave away exactly one. So why was he only throwing deep on 12.8% of his attempts? His average depth of target for the year was 8.7 yards. Almost half his throws didn't travel ten. Against Washington, in the worst game of his season, his average target depth was 4.9 yards and he graded a 59.7. That's not on him. That's a staff turning the best deep passer they had into a screen operator. Which brings me to the throw I actually have a problem with. Three-level read, deep defender and flat defender. The safety sits on the over. That means Jeremiah Smith is one-on-one and you launch it. Launch it right there. He does launch it, 57 yards, and Smith catches it. He's just late by a beat. Get it out five yards earlier and that's a walk-in touchdown instead of a contested catch. Right read. Right decision. A hair late. That's the whole thing with him. What happens when it breaks Clean pocket: 82.1% completions, 25 touchdowns to five picks, a 94.4 grade, 2.70 seconds to throw. Pressured: 58.9%, a 67.1 grade, 3.54 seconds to throw. Seventeen sacks. Fourteen throwaways. Look at the clock more than the grade. Under duress he holds it almost a full second longer. He doesn't speed up. He doesn't bail. He waits, and then he eats it or chucks it out of bounds. Blitzes don't scare him, and that's worth saying. He completed 75.9% with eighteen touchdowns against extra rushers and got the ball out faster doing it. He knows where to go schematically. It's when the pocket actually caves that he's got one answer, and the answer is stand there. Eleven scrambles. The first half against Miami, he was rattled Watch his feet. That's the tell. Miami shows blitz, and before the snap you can already see it. The double pat. The twitchy feet. Then the protection holds up fine and he plays like the roof is coming down anyway. He checks down before routes develop. Three-vertical concept against a middle-of-the-field-open look, two on the safety, the bender is sitting there for a big play, and he panics and takes the check down. Another one, they call out the blitz, they kick to it perfectly, protection is clean. Step up and deliver it to Smith. That's all. He leaves the pocket instead. I've said this about him from the beginning. He has to let his nuts drop. Be a dude. Don't play scared. He played scared for two quarters in the biggest game of his life. Some of it isn't his fault. That offensive line went on "one" what felt like every single snap, and I'd be jumpy too with a front teeing off on the same count all night. Both picks belong to somebody else The pick six was a quick screen. Jeremiah Smith has to block the nickel and doesn't. That's the play. The ball was exactly where it needed to be. And behind the line of scrimmage was Sayin's worst area all season anyway. A 66.6 grade with two interceptions on throws that are supposed to be free yards. That's blocking and scheme, not arm talent, and it handed Miami seven points in a game Ohio State lost by three. Whatever they said at halftime He came out a different quarterback and started dropping bombs. Third-and-15, he steps into a clean lane and delivers a strike on time. One, two, three, hitch, throw. Nothing better than that. Four verticals, Tate sits it down against off coverage, Smith goes, and Sayin drops a back shoulder ball in there. That's a big-boy throw. When your quarterback can make that one, your receivers are never covered. CJ Stroud made a living on it. Then with under a minute left, high rush, a guy wrapped around his ankles, weight back, all arm whip into a bucket for Carnell Tate. One of the best throws you'll see a college quarterback make. Tate dropped it. The mess in front of him That was the least prepared offensive line I watched all year, and it's not that they got beat. It's the mental errors. Ian Moore going the wrong way on a stretch play. Carson Hinsman looking outside at an edge blitzer the running back already has, when his job is the tackle spiking inside. Last play of the game, three-down front, you get one single block and two double teams, and instead they triple the end and leave Luke Montgomery alone against the guy who ends the season. Tyler Bowen owns that. The receivers didn't help against press man. Smith running routes with no release at all against a corner draped all over him. Tate falling down on a catchable fade, alligator-arming another one, and missing a block that walks Smith into the end zone. That room played like it didn't have a coach. And a couple of calls were rough. The opening RPO asks him to throw a hitch at a corner sitting there playing with vision, waiting to jump quick game. That's a scheme error. Then third-and-three in the red zone with the game hanging on it, no RPO attached, no free access, nothing. If you won't build a five-yard out into a third-and-three for the most accurate quarterback in the country, you're telling everybody in the building you don't trust him. Where I've got him B+ for the Miami game. I wanted an A-minus and the second half earns one. The poise, the toughness, the bounce-back, the throws. But I can't get past two quarters of a kid playing scared, and I can't get past twenty-five minutes of film with not one scramble in it. The season is better than that and the number says so. A 92.9 grade, elite accuracy, the best decision-making I charted, and a deep ball nobody let him use, all behind a line actively working against him. In this series he's ahead of Dante Moore and Josh Hoover, even with CJ Carr, and behind Darian Mensah. And the gap between him and Mensah is what I opened with. Mensah's arm is not better. Mensah's accuracy is not better. Mensah goes and makes something happen when the play dies, and Julian won't. He's a good enough athlete. He's every bit the athlete Mensah is. It's a habit, not a limitation, and habits get fixed. So fix it. Feel the edge coming, get out of the pocket, and go make somebody miss. Give the play a second life. Sometimes you get a chunk, sometimes you throw it away anyway, but you gave it two chances instead of one. He gave it one. Every single time.