Former Notre Dame Quarterback Malik Zaire Calls Will Howard Ohio State’s Worst Quarterback in the Last 15 Years, Says He’s “Taking All Bets” on Notre Dame to Win

By Josh Poloha on January 12, 2025 at 7:42 pm
Malik Zaire
Christopher Hanewinckel – Imagn Images
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Former Notre Dame quarterback Malik Zaire had a lot to say about Will Howard and Ohio State this weekend.

Howard has played some of his best football of the season in the CFP to close out a career year for the fifth-year senior, helping lead Ohio State to three straight wins and a trip to the national championship game next Monday. But even though Howard has completed 292 of 402 passes (72.6%) for 33 touchdowns and 10 interceptions this season, Zaire still calls Howard the worst quarterback the Buckeyes have had in the last 15 years.

Zaire cherry-picked video clips of some of Howard's worst throws of the season. It's the type of cherry-picking that someone could do to make any quarterback look bad, even Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady, not that I'm comparing Howard to those two whatsoever.

For some perspective, Howard has as many touchdowns in three CFP games (six) as Zaire had throughout his entire four-year college career. Howard also has more passing yards in the past three games (919) than Zaire had in three seasons at Notre Dame (816).

For those curious, he considers quarterbacks such as Kyle McCord and Kenny Guiton to be better Buckeyes than Howard. No offense to either of those guys, but that's just not the case and the stats back that up.

Howard wasn't the only Buckeye Zaire called out. He also mentioned that Jeremiah Smith, one of the top wide receivers in college football as a freshman, hasn't shown enough to beat the Notre Dame secondary.

He questioned where Smith was in the Cotton Bowl after No. 4 finished with just one catch (three targets) for three yards. He must have missed the part where Smith was being double-teamed and bracketed all game.

If talking about Howard and Smith wasn't enough, though, Zaire also called out Jack Sawyer. who has 4.5 sacks, seven passes defended and a legendary 83-yard scoop-and-score in the CFP.

That came after Zaire said that he would be “taking all the bets” on the Irish beating Ohio State if “the only thing stopping Notre Dame and Marcus from making history is Will Howard.”

Zaire mentioned that the “sweetest part” of Notre Dame beating Ohio State would be the fact that the Irish are led by former Buckeye linebacker Marcus Freeman.

He also discussed Ohio State losing to Michigan. Buckeye fans know that loss was embarrassing for many reasons, but Notre Dame lost to Northern Illinois, 16-14, in Week 2. The Huskies finished the season 8-5, including just 4-4 in the MAC.

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