The Ohio State Buckeyes picked up a 19-15 road win over the Indiana Hoosiers on Saturday, but they lost star quarterback Julian Sayin to an arm injury in the process. With Sayin sidelined, head coach Ryan Day is turning to true freshman Luke Fahey, and one former Ohio State coach isn’t sure that it’s the right call.
Speaking on his podcast this week, Urban Meyer called it “perplexing” that Day went with Fahey instead of second-year quarterback Tavien St. Clair, a former five-star recruit who has been in the program for more than a year.
Sayin Goes Down
Ohio State went to Bloomington on Saturday for a rematch of last season’s Big Ten Championship Game and held on for the win, but it may have come at a steep price. Sayin was sacked and fumbled midway through the fourth quarter, though the Buckeyes recovered. He headed to the locker room favoring his right arm and later returned to the sideline wearing a sling.
“I don’t have a ton of details, but he’ll probably be out several weeks,” Day told reporters after the game, via On3. “We’ll have to come up with a plan there.”
Day didn’t have much more of an update on Monday.
“It’ll be at the least several weeks, but no update right now,” Day said on the Buckeye Roundtable show, via Eleven Warriors. “They’re still going through some of their testing and some of their meetings.”
It’s a massive loss for the Buckeyes. Sayin was a Heisman Trophy finalist in 2025, and he had thrown for 2,007 yards, 19 touchdowns, and just four interceptions this season before the injury.
Fahey, a three-star recruit from Mission Viejo, California, went 0-for-2 passing after Sayin went down, as Ohio State leaned almost entirely on the running game. Indiana nearly made the Buckeyes pay for it, as Josh Hoover appeared to hit Nick Marsh for a go-ahead touchdown with 1:02 left, but he was ruled out of bounds.
St. Clair, meanwhile, will presumably be the backup behind Fahey as long as Sayin is out. He was a five-star prospect and No. 4 overall player in the 2025 class. So far, he has completed five of nine passes for 52 yards over two seasons as the third-string quarterback.
‘It’s Perplexing’
Meyer, who brought Day back to Ohio State as his co-offensive coordinator in 2017 at Ohio State, made it clear on The Triple Option that he would have gone in a different direction at the quarterback position, admitting that he is confused why St. Clair is not the next man up for Ohio State.
“It’s perplexing why he’s not the quarterback, why he doesn’t jog on the field when Sayin went down,” Meyer said on the podcast.
Of course, Meyer has been through this before. In 2014, starter J.T. Barrett suffered a season-ending injury, and Meyer turned to Cardale Jones, who went on to lead the Buckeyes to a national championship.
“We went through this obviously; it’s well-documented (with) Cardale Jones,” Meyer said. “Everyone else is kind of tired, but you have to practice your ass off. And I would talk to the team, and we did, and apologize to the players and say, ‘Listen, we got to go win these next few games, and we have got to go.'”
Ohio State has a bye this week before traveling to face USC on Oct. 31, and then it hosts Oregon and Northwestern. A trip to Nebraska and a home game against Michigan close out the regular season.
Needless to say, Ohio State’s 6-1 start and its College Football Playoff hopes could depend on how Fahey handles the next few weeks, and on whether Day sticks with him if he struggles.
Meyer, meanwhile, is still wondering whether or not Ohio State will consider turning to St. Clair, instead.
“You got a real one coming up (against USC), and I’m curious to see if they try the five-star,” Meyer said.
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