{"id":41792,"date":"2025-05-11T14:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-11T14:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/41792\/"},"modified":"2025-05-11T14:03:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-11T14:03:08","slug":"will-howard-confident-2024-showed-his-true-abilities-my-development-really-all-happened-at-ohio-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/41792\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Howard Confident 2024 Showed His True Abilities: ‘My Development Really All Happened At Ohio State’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steelers rookie QB Will Howard had his best year in college in 2024. He also believes it\u2019s his most representative year, explaining why. Recently, appearing on former Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger\u2019s Footbahlin podcast<\/a>, he talked about his journey, which led him to Ohio State last year.<\/p>\n

After winning the Big 12 championship with Kansas State, Howard originally planned to declare for the 2024 NFL Draft. But they had a disappointing follow-up campaign, and he felt there was more he could get out of his college career. But he knew he couldn\u2019t find it at Kansas State, which appeared ready to move in another direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d gotten a lot out of my career there, but I just didn\u2019t think coming back for a fifth year there was the best option for me\u201d, Howard said. \u201cI think I maximized my potential there, and I knew that if I wanted to go and do another year of college, it had to be somewhere else\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Even after entering the transfer portal, Howard said he still anticipated declaring for the draft. But he didn\u2019t like what he was hearing. \u201cI didn\u2019t feel like my talent level met where my draft stock was. I was a Day-3-to-undrafted guy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing into the NFL, you can have success wherever you\u2019re drafted. Ideally, starting quarterbacks\u2014and that\u2019s my goal, to be a starting quarterback in the NFL<\/a>\u2014they usually come from the first round. So I wanted to give myself the best chance to do that\u201d, he said. That\u2019s how Will Howard ended up at Ohio State, having also talked to Miami and USC.<\/p>\n

But it was at Ohio State, first with Bill O\u2019Brien and then Chip Kelly, where he believes he blossomed. \u201cI got so much better this past year\u201d, he insisted. \u201cOn the field, my development really all happened at Ohio State. I learned so much in this past year. Everything just lined up\u201d.<\/p>\n

In 34 games at Kansas State, Howard threw for 5,786 yards, completing 58.8 percent of his passes. He threw 48 touchdowns to 25 interceptions. While he still threw 10 interceptions in his lone season with the Buckeyes, Howard also threw 35 touchdowns. His completion percentage also skyrocketed to 73.0, throwing for over 4,000 yards. Oh, and he led Ohio State to a national title, playing his best football in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

So that is the Will Howard that he believes the Steelers are getting. And there is plenty of precedent for players blossoming in their final collegiate season and going on to have NFL careers reflecting that growth. We\u2019ll see whether that will be the case for Howard or not. As a sixth-round pick, he isn\u2019t under much pressure for now.<\/p>\n

Not externally, anyway. Internally, he knows what he wants. Will Howard intends to be a starting quarterback in the NFL, and every action he takes is with that goal in mind<\/a>. He went through a lot during his college career, and plans to use that to write his next chapter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steelers rookie QB Will Howard had his best year in college in 2024. He also believes it\u2019s his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[12193,7,6,520,57,2360,426,691,2183],"class_list":{"0":"post-41792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-footbahlin","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","13":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","14":"tag-steelers","15":"tag-trending","16":"tag-will-howard"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114489577197285788","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}