COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State quarterback Will Howard is headed home next weekend to face the team he grew up rooting for, hoping to make a fool out of them.
Even after a 21-17 win over Nebraska where he was disappointed with the way the Buckeyes’ offense played, he couldn’t hid his eagerness to face Penn State, a school he grew up 2.5 hours from and always dreamed of playing for. But he wasn’t in the Nittany Lions’ future plans, even if they got involved with him early on.
“They were up until I got hurt my junior year,” Howard told cleveland.com. “Then I stopped hearing from him.”
Howard went on to develop into a three-star recruit rated as the No. 882 player and No. 33 pro-style quarterback in the 2020 class. He signed with Kansas State, spending four years with the Wildcats as a multi-year starter.
But now he’s a Buckeye, with a chance to show his hometown school what they missed out on. OSU will head into that game with a 6-1 record. Penn State could be undefeated as the nation’s No. 3 team as long as it escapes Wisconsin with a win on Saturday night. Should that happen, things are shaping up for this to be Ohio State’s second top-five matchup on the road in its last three games. It lost its first game of this magnitude at Oregon, 32-31.
Howard wants a different result next Saturday when he heads home. He’s expecting to have a ton of family in attendance for the first game he’s played in Pennsylvania since high school.
More importantly, it’s a chance for him to make a statement against the Nittany Lions. More specifically, a statement against their head coach, James Franklin, the man in charge of the program that never gave him a chance to live out his childhood dream.
Howard has a vendetta against Penn State and he has no problem making sure everyone knows it.
“I’m stoked,” Howard said after the win over Nebraska. “I cannot wait. It’s going to be a homecoming for me. Grew up a Penn State fan. I wanted to go there my whole life. They didn’t think I was good enough. I guess we’ll see next week if I was.”