Will Howard reached the college football mountaintop in January, leading the Ohio State Buckeyes to a national championship in the first 12-team College Football Playoff. He played extremely well down the stretch for Ryan Day and Ohio State, but he's not expected to be a significant factor in this month's 2025 NFL draft.
Don't tell that to former former Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden, though. The Super Bowl winner had Howard on his long-running NFL draft series in which he interviews and breaks down film of a number of draft-eligible signal callers, where he raved about Howard's rare combination of size and mobility—something that is at the core of Allen's game.
Allen measured in at 6' 4", 237 pounds at the 2018 NFL scouting combine. Howard? 6' 4", 236.
"Now you're a big dual threat quarterback aren't you? Isn't that what you are?" Gruden asked Howard, before showing a picture of Allen (16:45 of the video below). "It's the MVP of the league man, Josh Allen. He's a real big dual threat. ... You guys are the same size, man."
After showing highlights from Howard and Ohio State's national championship win over Notre Dame, Gruden doubled way down on the comparison.
“How the hell do people not like you as the No. 1 quarterback in the draft? Didn't you win the national title?” Gruden said. "What do you gotta do? You're 6' 5", you're like a young Josh Allen."
It should be noted that Howard had a much, much more accomplished career at Kansas State and Ohio State before entering the draft, while Allen flashed potential but never put it all together at Wyoming. He was drafted No. 7 on his rare physical gifts; Howard may share some of those traits, but teams don't view him as nearly the same kind of prospect.
Mock drafts have Howard going anywhere from early on day two of the draft to late on day three. One ESPN mock draft by Field Yates has the New Orleans Saints trading into the back-end of the second-round to land Howard with the No. 61 pick. One of his colleagues, Ben Solak, has him going more than 100 picks later in the sixth-round to the Minnesota Vikings. Fantasy Sports On SI has Howard as the No. 7-ranked quarterback in the draft.
It should be noted that Gruden has a penchant for going over the top with his praise of the quarterbacks on his show, back when it ran on ESPN and evidently now with Barstool Sports. Time will tell which MVP-caliber comparisons he has for guys like Memphis's Seth Henigan and the QB that Howard replaced at Ohio State, Syracuse's Kyle McCord.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Jon Gruden Compares Projected Mid-Round Quarterback to 'Young Josh Allen'.
