QB Corner: A final look at Will Howard's Weighted On-Target Percentage profile
The Ohio State quarterback went on a Linsanity run in the College Football Playoffs, but how does his accuracy profile add up?
The College Football Playoffs have come to an end with Ohio State Football hoisting the trophy, and quarterback Will Howard played a massive role in their four-game dominance as he now prepares for the 2025 NFL Draft.
After four years at Kansas State, Howard was brought to Ohio State to do two things: improve the quarterback position and win a National Championship. Howard and the Buckeyes achieved both of those goals this season despite what looked like a morale-shattering loss to the Michigan Wolverines.
Instead, Howard, head coach Ryan Day, and the rest of the team went out and won every single playoff game by at least two scores. In that span, the fifth-year senior threw for 1,150 yards (287 yards per game), eight touchdowns and just two interceptions.
He now has many asking just how high his 2025 NFL Draft stock has risen. So I did what I do best: charted all of his last six games and his other games against ranked opponents to answer the question about his accuracy.
Again, ball placement, accuracy, and Weighted On-Target Percentage is just one piece of the puzzle, but a proven big piece. So let’s talk about it. Here is a deep dive into the accuracy profile of Will Howard and just how wild of a Linsanity run he went on in the College Football Playoffs.
Looking closely at the charting profile of Will Howard
Will Howard needed to take more shots down the field. Charting eight of his games, he threw the ball deep just 14 times with 10 of those shots coming in the College Football Playoffs. He was, however, on target on 9-of-14 throws when he did take the shot.
This is well above average historically over the last three years.
The deep ball is an art of just giving your receiver the chance to make a humanly possible play, and Howard does a good job of that. Only Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders has a more on-target deep ball in this class, and it is by only one percent. This is the same for throwing outside the numbers.
Howard tends to live along the boundaries. Of the eight games charted, he threw 36 passes at the intermediate level and along the boundary. That is more than quarterbacks like Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart and Texas’ Quinn Ewers did all season long.
Again, Sanders is the only quarterback more on-target in this class of those that I have charted to the date who is more precise at that portion of the field at a 65 percent clip.
This hovers right around average among quarterbacks charted over the last three years.
His body of work over the middle of the field, however, is most lacking. For most of the season, until the last two games against Texas and Notre Dame, Howard tended to avoid the middle of the field like the plague. He threw just 24 passes to that level of the field in eight games charted.
Now compare this to players like Miami’s Cam Ward (91 attempts over the middle), Sanders (60 attempts), and Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart (71 attempts), even if you multiply Howard’s attempts by two (Ohio State played 16 games), and that number is still one of the lowest in the class despite an additional three games than most of the group.
To make matters worse, Howard’s on-target percentage over the middle is near the bottom of the class by a significant margin at just around 58 percent. The next lowest over the middle is Alabama’s Jalen Milroe at 65 percent.
While Howard started ripping middle of the field throws more in the playoffs, his on-target percentage on them was still right at 60 percent. This is easily his most-needed area of improvement, especially considering how condensed the middle of the field is at the NFL level.
Both numbers from the regular season and playoffs are significantly below the average of 71 percent over the last three years.
Howard was brought to Ohio State to simply be able to distribute the football like a point guard to their stable of horses at the wide receiver position (and use his legs when the offense needed him to). And he did that well this season. In the short game, Howard was on-target on 88 percent of his looks under 10 yards.
Finishing this eight-game sample size with a Weighted On-Target Percentage of 66.39, Howard now sits with the second-highest in the 2025 NFL Draft class and above average historically among quarterbacks over the last three years.
What NFL Draft QBs closely align from a WOT% perspective?
Will Howard is firmly in the same tier as the Day 3 quarterbacks in the class like Jaxson Dart and Indiana’s Kurtis Rourke. However, he has a case to be the best of that tier and potentially as good as QB3 in this two-quarterback class.
His charting profile aligns quite closely with the likes of Jake Haener (5th round pick of the New Orleans Saints) out of Fresno State and Michael Pratt (7th round pick of the Green Bay Packers) over the past two seasons. The only difference is that Howard put up this accuracy profile against a total of seven ranked teams while the other two did so against Group of Five competition.
This goes to say, however, that what Howard brings from an arm talent, athetlic ability, and accuracy standpoint still has him looking at the trajectory of a career backup. There are many that have made livings as career backups though, so there is a decade-long pathway for Howard to play in the NFL.
With Chip Kelly as his offensive coordinator, Howard also has NFL operations and playbook under his belt coming from Kansas State to Ohio State. Most of this projection as perhaps the top Day 3 option in the draft has to do with his playoff run.
So let’s address that next.
Let’s talk about his playoff hot streak…
There was a definite switch turned on from Howard in the College Football Playoffs compared to the other four ranked games Ohio State played in the regular season. Howard’s Weighted On-Target Percentage was just a measly 59.79 percent in those four regular season games.
Much of that concerns the limited number of deep balls thrown. Howard attempted just four in those four games combined and was on target on just two. In the four-game stretch of the College Football Playoffs, Howard attempted 10. And of those 10, he was on target on seven of them.
His work outside the numbers is comparable to that in the regular season and the College Football Playoffs. In the regular season, Howard was on-target on 65 percent of those looks, and he hit on 69 percent of them in the playoffs.
The biggest turning point for Howard as the Buckeyes went on their playoff run, however, was his willingness to strike over the middle of the field. During the four regular season ranked games, Howard threw just nine passes over the middle at the intermediate level, connecting on just five of them.
This is where the majority of his interceptions came from as well.
In the playoffs? Howard ripped 15 over the middle of the field at the intermediate level and was on-target on nine of them. The Texas game was most impressive in this regard, although he did throw a pick over the middle in this game, as he was fearlessly ripping throws into non-existent windows with anticipation for the Buckeyes.
This is what will make or break him at the NFL level. The hashes and numbers are more condensed at the NFL level, meaning the windows to seed throws over the middle of the field will have to be anticipated. He showed it against Texas and Notre Dame. Can he sustain it?
His short game stuff is extremely comparable from the regular season to the playoffs as well. It’s what he was brought to Columbus to do: play point guard. That has stayed pretty consistent outside of the Michigan game for Howard.
Let’s wrap it up
What is so hard to project about Will Howard’s future in the NFL is if that switch that he flipped is temporary, predominantly throwing deep down the field and taking tight window shots over the middle, or if he figured something out in the last 20 percent of his season in the College Football Playoffs.
He’s not a shot-taker. At least for the first 4.75 years of his college football career. Will Howard has been a distributor, and he did that at a high level for Ohio State outside of the Michigan game for the most part. This screams a backup quarterback and Day 3 pick.
Despite a Linsanity run from Howard, this is more than likely who he is. The advantage that he has entering the NFL, however? He has shown the ability to flip coaching staffs, learn a new playbook, and do it under someone who has called plays at the NFL level in Chip Kelly.
That matters.
And it might be what separates him from the likes of Jaxson Dart, Quinn Ewers, and others, who have three years in a juvenile college system and still struggle to get things right pre-snap and get the ball out on time when things aren’t perfect for them.
Howard’s playoff performance does not change much at the top of the class. This is a two-quarterback class and has been from the jump. But it does shake up that middle tier of Day 3 guys, and Howard may have put himself in a position to be the first of that group off the board.
bruh I was literally about to just ask about this