Ryan Day’s team won the game, but it lost its star quarterback for quite a while.
Such was the mixed mood late Saturday afternoon in Bloomington when Ohio State’s head coach met with reporters to discuss injured star quarterback Julian Sayin. The junior who finished 4th in the Heisman Trophy voting last season after his first year as the Buckeyes’ starting quarterback was forced to leave Saturday’s 19-15 victory at Indiana and was later seen walking out of the locker room with his right throwing arm in a sling.
Sayin appeared to suffer an injury to that right arm in the fourth quarter, when he was forced out of the game. Early in that fourth quarter, Sayin connected with Jeremiah Smith on a 38-yard touchdown pass to give the Buckeyes a 19-7 lead, but he was replaced by Luke Fahey during the next possession and then with less than 4 minutes left was seen emerging from the locker room with that sling on.
Day’s update on Sayin afterward during his session with reporters was not a positive one. The coach revealed that Sayin would be out “several weeks,” meaning Ohio State will ahve to navigate the rest of its tough Big Ten schedule without its starter and one of the best quarterbacks in the college football.
Sayin finished the game 15 of 29 with 235 yards passing, 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. He was having a stellar season for the 4th-ranked Buckeyes, but now Day and his team will search for answers at the position for, as Day noted, a good amount of time as Sayin tries to recover in time to return this season.
Ohio State got the win but lost its starting quarterback for a good amount of time, so the Buckeyes’ College Football Playoff hopes are uncertain as the season moves forward. Here is what the Kalshi market is currently saying about the best odds to make the 12-team field that will be announced in December:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
