It wasn’t too long ago that Ohio State quarterback Lincoln Kienholz felt like the new kid on the block in Columbus.
A four-star recruit in the 2023 class, Kienholz committed to the Buckeyes late in his recruiting cycle, choosing to play for Ryan Day over a Kalen DeBoer-led Washington team at the time. In what may be apropos of nothing, Kienholz became the first athlete ever from the state of South Dakota to see a single snap for Ohio State in program history, as the Pierre, S.D. standout appeared in three games his freshman year.
In his sophomore season, Kienholz was Ohio State’s fourth-string quarterback, sitting behind Will Howard, Devin Brown and Julian Sayin. He only appeared in one game for one series, as he ran out the clock against Tennessee during the Buckeyes’ College Football Playoff win.
As he heads into year three, Brown and Howard are no longer at Ohio State and Kienholz is suddenly the elder statesman of the quarterback room. He’s Ohio State’s lone scholarship quarterback with two years of collegiate experience, as Sayin was a freshman last season and five-star 2025 signee Tavien St. Clair has been on campus for just a couple months.
Coincidentally, he’s battling those two for the starting quarterback job in 2025. If we were setting odds on Ohio State’s future signal-caller, Sayin would be the favorite to start, with Kienholz likely to slot in as the No. 2 quarterback. That’s hardly etched in pencil, let alone stone, though, as OSU quarterbacks coach Billy Fessler said Wednesday the Buckeyes are a “long way away” from even discussing how close the quarterback competition is at the moment.
Traditionally, Day doesn’t name a starting quarterback until at least mid-August, and sometimes it can take longer than that in the case of Brown vs. Kyle McCord in 2023. It would be a surprise if this competition didn’t extend into preseason camp, too.
“It feels wide open,” Kienholz said Wednesday of the quarterback competition. “It feels good because I come to the building every day and strive to be the best quarterback in the nation.”
Now that he’s a veteran, Kienholz says he feels a responsibility of the quarterback position group to take on a leadership role, just as past OSU signal-callers have done for him.
“In the past years, I've had older guys in front of me,” Kienholz said. “And just getting to learn from them on how to be a leader and how to take control of the huddle and things like that. Now, I'm the oldest guy in the room. So, I kind of feel that now and I kind of feel more confident. And I feel like I need to be a leader for the quarterbacks.”
As is typically the case, while Ohio State’s quarterbacks are competing with each other, it’s a friendly competition. Sayin will often ask Kienholz questions on the field and in meeting rooms, and vice versa. All three of OSU’s signal-callers have the same goal once they step on the field.
“It’s just trying to be the guy your teammates can look to when you have to make a play on 4th-and-2 or whatever it is,” Kienholz said. “I’d say (Julian and I) can use use each other to kind of get each other better. That was something I noticed with Devin and Will, they were always asking each other questions and always making sure we’re doing the right things. Mentally, you have to be on your stuff and on the field you have to make the play when your number is called.”
Kienholz says his strengths as a quarterback include using his athleticism and scrambling ability, consistently making routine plays and his physical strength, as he’s bulked up from 185 pounds to 212 pounds within the past year. He’s also grown as a student of the game, according to his position coach.
“I've definitely seen a lot of growth from getting in here in June last year and to where we see him at now,” Fessler said. “Just a full year of understanding the offense, a full year of getting a feel for what we're trying to do and what we're trying to accomplish. And just the minute details about where my eyes need to be, how I can tie my feet in with my eyes, how I can make sure that I'm not just throwing the ball to the right receiver, because that's what my read dictates, but I'm also throwing it at the right time. And I have accuracy within that accuracy that I just displayed by putting it on the right shoulder to offset a receiver and throw them away from a defender, or whatever that may look like.
“So that's why I'm excited because you're starting to see more and more of that from Lincoln. As we get into two practices, and we've only had two practices, but just that growth that I don't think is a growth that happened over two practices. It's a growth that happened from the time we got here and I got here in June through right now, and that's what's exciting.”
In the days leading up to the Rose Bowl, Kienholz told Eleven Warriors he hadn’t decided if he would enter the transfer portal or not (he obviously didn't), but more or less wanted to stay in Columbus as long as he had a viable path to being at least on the two-deep. That path is now certainly there for the South Dakota gunslinger.
“There’s always pressure just being the quarterback of Ohio State,” Kienholz said of the pressure facing him this offseason as he competes for the job. “There’s always going to be pressure. But I think pressure is a privilege.”
