Ohio State Rewatch: Breaking down Julian Sayin's "off" day against UCLA

Sayin saw his efficiency dip some in a win against the Bruins.

Quarterback Julian Sayin had his least efficient game since the opener against Texas in Ohio State’s win vs. UCLA. (Photo courtesy of Ohio State athletics)

COLUMBUS — This is the bar that Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin has set. His completion percentage dips below 80 percent, his game shows even slight inefficiencies, and we’re left to wonder if everything is OK.

Sayin’s performance against UCLA was his “worst” since the season-opener against Texas, only because, for him, completing 74 percent of passes with a touchdown and no interceptions qualifies as an off day.

He was playing without Carnell Tate and only had Jeremiah Smith on the field with him for 22 of his 59 snaps. Sayin also tweaked his left ankle early in the game. Those are all reasons enough to explain why things weren’t operating as cleanly as they normally do for Ohio State’s passing attack and its quarterback, who, by the way, still leads the nation in completion percentage (80.1 percent) and in overall passing efficiency.

But we’re still going to use the weekly rewatch to focus on Sayin’s outing to see if there’s anything actually worth being worried about long-term. So, no defense here. But shoutout to the starters for holding UCLA to 30 yards and two first downs over seven possessions. Also, no run game discussion. We’ve beaten that to death. But it was good to see OSU’s running backs, all three of them, get loose against a bad UCLA defense.

It’s all Sayin here. He admitted to not having his absolute best stuff against the Bruins.

“I had a couple of misses tonight, and just wasn’t super perfect mechanically with those,” he said.