Jeff Christensen has been training quarterbacks for more than 30 years. His list of pupils includes Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Texas’ Quinn Ewers and more.
In all his years, he’s never had a quarterback start multiple games the way Ohio State’s Will Howard did in Big Ten play this year. Howard completed his first nine passes in the Big Ten opener against Michigan State. He completed 10 in a row against Iowa, 10 of his first 12 against Oregon and 10 straight against Nebraska.
Rewatching the film, Christensen said Howard was “incredibly accurate,” which was a focus of their offseason training.
Howard finished three of those four games with an 80-plus percent completion rate and 67 percent against Michigan State. His 28 completions against Oregon were the most in that span.
Before the Penn State game, Howard was coming off a 13-completion performance against Nebraska and Christensen joked with Howard that he needed to start the game 2 of 10 and “maybe you’ll finish with more than 20 completions, because this 14-completion s–t needs to stop.”
Howard’s start wasn’t good. His first throw, and Ohio State’s second offensive play, was a pick six. He rebounded, finishing with 182 yards, two touchdowns, completing 66.7 percent of his passes and led Ohio State to a 20-13 road win over a top-five team.
Free, daily sports updates direct to your inbox.
Free, daily sports updates direct to your inbox.
Sign Up
But after the game he picked up his phone and saw a text from Christensen. “Call me,” it read.
Howard did and Christensen said “I said start 2-of-10 not throw a pick six.”
The two had a laugh and Howard replied “Can you believe I threw that?”
“I don’t know what the hell you were thinking, but it was zone coverage and he was begging you to throw it and the backside in cut was so open you could’ve thrown it there with your left pinky toe,” Christensen said laughing.
Jokes aside, Christensen was impressed by Howard’s performance even with the interception and the fumble out of the back of the end zone, because of how he finished.
“Look at Patrick this year: he’s had some tough sledding, but he bounces back and that’s why people are in awe of how he competes. Baker (Mayfield) has figured it out, too,” Christenen said. “Will has the same DNA and the great ones all do. Their focus goes up 2.5 times and that’s because they don’t overreact.”
Howard will tell you he didn’t play well against Penn State, and that’s because he’s hard on himself, and missed a few throws. But that game was crucial for his growth this season. As each game goes on, it’s become more and more obvious that Howard’s confidence as a passer has grown tenfold since he started working with Christensen in the offseason and Ryan Day and Chip Kelly at Ohio State.
All the slight tweaks they’ve done to his mechanics and footwork have helped him become one of the most efficient quarterbacks in the country. He’s third in the FBS in passer rating (181.9) and tied for second nationally in completion percentage (72.9).
“I don’t think he’s ever been this confident of a passer, because now he knows the answers,” Christensen said. “He knows what is causing some things to happen and he knows how to self-correct.”
Christensen spoke to Howard before they officially started working together last spring and he was immediately impressed by Howard’s demeanor.
The Kansas State transfer is confident, but not cocky or averse to the notion that he had room to improve. He studies the game incessantly and was open to everything Christensen wanted to teach him.
Improving accuracy, spin rate and footwork became focal points. Howard’s spin rate was noticeably different in training camp than it was in the spring. The power he had on his throws was impressive, but all of that tied together with different parts of the body.
“You have to understand cause and effect of everything and how your body mechanically works playing catch,” Christensen said. “That’s basically what you’re doing, you just have a few guys in the way. So it was the consistency of feet, knees and hips and the little things that after 55 years you figure out.”
At 6 foot 4, 235 pounds, Howard’s body type is different than some of the other top quarterbacks in the country. At times, that works in his favor. He can comfortably see over the offensive line and he’s hard to bring down. But it also makes it harder to be accurate, and twitchy, in the quick game.
His size doesn’t make it impossible to be accurate, as Howard has shown this season. It just meant he and Christensen had to tweak his body movements to account for his size. Howard was all for it.
“He said, ‘How do I do this?’ and we got to work,” Christensen said.
Howard put the work in to adjust his body, but he’s also been a good fit in Day and Kelly’s offense, because the scheme has been run to amplify Howard’s strengths.
It’s not happenstance that Howard is nearly 12 percent more accurate than he’s ever been in his college career. It’s because of the work he’s done and the scheme Ohio State has put together.
“His hindrance could be he has a big ass, big hips, big muscle and bone structure so he’s not going to pivot as quickly as some kids,” Christensen said. “So you have to do best with what you have got to work with and fit it all together right. That’s the beauty of having a lot of history and knowledge at this and understanding how all of that fits and that goes back to Ryan and Chip on that. They really do a nice job.”
Howard’s experience has been a positive for Ohio State. Their conversations about weekly gameplans are a collaborative effort and Howard’s experience with various formations and coverages has helped Kelly scheme a bit more.
His mobility is a positive as well, but even though he had four years of experience and was used to RPO systems at Kansas State, he had to adjust to Ohio State’s scheme in the offseason.
Since then, he’s been stellar in the short and intermediate game. Howard has completed 76 percent of his passes from 0 to 10 yards and 64.4 percent on passes 11 to 20 yards downfield.
The question for Howard has been his deep ball.
Howard was tempted to leave for the NFL after leaving Kansas State. He knew he had the talent, but the conversations about him always came down to consistency.
Could he make the big-time throws look easy more often than not? He knew that was the case.
“I showed flashes of throwing the deep ball, but I wasn’t consistent. I showed flashes of throwing the ball on the run well, making good decisions, but it wasn’t all the time,” Howard said. “Coming here it was ‘How can I be as consistent and mature as possible?’”
That was also something that he and Christensen wanted to address. There’s a lot of technical work that goes into throwing an accurate deep pass. Arm strength is a big part of it, but it’s often about what goes on below the waist, too: footwork, the hip snap and timing are all important in what Christensen calls a “violent” motion.
“I have to throw the ball 50-to-60 yards downfield through that basketball hoop and the next reaction is violent,” he said. “How do you get violence but keep it smooth? That’s the key.”
Again, Howard went to work with Christensen and just in their time during the offseason, Christensen saw a lot of improvement.
“The slight mishaps on those throws below the waist are 25 percent of what they were, it’s very slight now,” he said.
That work carried over to Ohio State, as well.
Footwork is a constant point of emphasis for Kelly when he’s coaching the quarterbacks and though Howard’s deep numbers show some inconsistency, completing just 55 percent of his passes from 21 to 30 yards, he had his best game of the year last week against Northwestern.
His 34-yard pass to Gee Scott was arguably his best throw of the year and his favorite of the game.
He also had two deep balls, one that resulted in a touchdown to Carnell Tate and another that was a touchdown to Jeremiah Smith before it was overturned, that were put in positions that only the receiver could get.
It was obvious progress that Day, after the game, said was impressive.
“Coach Kelly and all the guys have been working hard on the football to make sure it’s timed up right and it was better this week,” Day said.
Howard’s growth from when he arrived at Ohio State is obvious. He’s in better shape, he’s more accurate and he’s making progression reads, not just locking onto one receiver.
He looks confident in his reads, throwing the ball and feels it, too.
Gone are the days that he has to try and place a throw downfield or overthink where it needed to go.
“With the work I’ve put in with my mechanics and footwork I don’t think about making those throws anymore,” Howard said. “They just kind of happen.”
And that’s what Ohio State needs, especially with starting center Seth McLaughlin out with an Achilles injury suffered in practice on Tuesday.
Howard’s experience and confidence just became that much more important to a potential national championship run for the Buckeyes.
(Photo of Will Howard: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
