One of the great pre-draft series made a comeback recently to feature all of the top quarterbacks in the 2025 NFL Draft Class. Gruden’s QB Class is a perfect interview format where a former head coach both teaches and tests quarterback prospects for their football IQ, mental processing and recall, and then finally their physical skills. He did a fantastic 45-minute interview with Pittsburgh Steelers sixth-round QB Will Howard at the beginning of April.
The first portion of the video is Jon Gruden gathering biographical information on Howard. He picked his brain on being replaced as the starter early in his college career at K-State and why he didn’t hit the transfer portal.
“The immediate reaction from everybody, quit, go transfer, go leave,” Howard told Gruden. “I just feel like this is the right place for me. I want to play for coach Klieman. In fall camp, I knew that they were probably gonna give him the job, but I was like shit, I’m gonna stay ready. At the end of the day, both of us were a big reason we won that Big 12 championship.”
Gruden makes his “students” take notes in these video, so he had him jot down the word “compete” and how important it is to always grind it out with competition in the NFL pointing to his successes with Rich Gannon who had to fight for his starting job in the NFL multiple times before finally breaking out with Gruden late in his career for four-straight Pro Bowls.
They also discussed an injury that Howard suffered in high school during his junior year that set him back in the recruiting process. While most high school kids would lose focus and mentally check out until they were healthy, Howard got more involved than ever.
“The day after I got surgery, I wanted to go back to practice because I didn’t want to be away,” Howard said.
Gruden was told that he became a quasi-coach for his high school team at that time. Howard clearly loves football, which was another note Gruden had him write down to always remember.
One small, but fun, story from this QB camp was Gruden showing Howard high fiving the ball boy. He was using it to illustrate that Howard is a fiery guy with a lot of passion on the field, but I think it also speaks to his character when he replied, “that’s my boy Nolan, man.”
Keep in mind that Howard transferred to Ohio State for his final season. I don’t know how often the star quarterback is going to know the ball boy by name, let alone refer to them as “my boy Nolan”.
When Howard transferred to Ohio State, he knew he couldn’t step in as the leader right away. He talked about the process of earning respect.
“I wasn’t going to step on anybody’s toes ’cause I was like you know what I want to earn their respect and their trust first and then I’m going to step into that leadership position,” Howard said. “I felt like I did a good job of coming in the winter and just grinding.”
Gruden put him through a series of white board exercises where he had him explain routes concepts and plays before installing an audible package for different situations he might see on the field. He keeps these quarterbacks on their toes to try to force errors and it really didn’t seem like Howard made a single mistake.
His football acumen is off the charts, which is something he told me during the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine that he prides himself on.
After a tumultuous season at Ohio State that included a brutal upset loss to Michigan at the end of the regular season, Howard and the Ohio State Buckeyes had a players-only meeting to refocus for the playoff push ahead. It was on that four-game run that Howard turned some heads with an amazing performance.
During that run, Howard completed 82 of his 109 attempts (75.2 percent) for 1,150 yards, 8 TDs and 2 INTs. That included the National Championship game against Notre Dame where he completed his first 13 passes while also having 16 carries for 57 yards. When the game plan called for him to run at Ohio State, he performed in the biggest of moments.
Gruden says a lot of hyperbolic things in these QB camps, but his thoughts on Howard were good.
“How the hell do people not like you as the No. 1 QB in the draft?” Gruden said. “Didn’t you win the national title? What do you gotta do? He’s 6-5, he’s like a young Josh Allen”
Size comparisons don’t mean that much compared to other critical factors, but it is worth noting that Howard is virtually the exact same size as the reigning league MVP Josh Allen.
Gruden then took things to the football field to have him apply everything he learned in the classroom. He implemented the cadence tips that Gruden gave him and ran the two-minute drill effectively with the new audibles that Gruden taught him.
From top to bottom, Howard looked very impressive in this episode of Gruden’s QB Class. I highly recommend checking it out. I promise you it’ll be hard to not be excited that the Steelers landed him in the sixth round.
