“I feel like a little more grown up,” he said. “It’s kind of cool — adulting a little bit. I was like, ‘All right, I can make some chicken or make some of that.’ I kind of had fun with it.
“It feels good to eat well and to treat your body right. I really learned how to do that here, and it’s been really, really good for me.”
The lighter Howard also looks sharper in the pocket, something head coach Ryan Day and offensive coordinator Chip Kelly attributed to knowing the offense better.
“Sometimes zip (on a throw) is, ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’” Kelly said. “When you have confidence to get back there, and I know the progression right away, and I can rip it right now. Sometimes you’re a little bit tentative, so the ball may not come off your hand the right way.”
Howard seemed to agree after spending the spring getting to know a new offense and the summer remaking his body.
“I feel like in the spring I was kind of — at the beginning at least — drinking from a fire hose a little bit, especially just with the way the offense was installed,” Howard said of spring practice. “I think that was good for me, kind of learning how to go through a spring or through a couple of practices without really having any prior experience with an offense and going through the struggles that I had and the things that I learned from.
“I feel like I really started to settle in practice seven, practice eight of the spring. I was like, ‘OK, this is really making sense.’
“I’m starting to kind of get my stride coming into fall camp. It’s been completely different.”
Howard “hitting his stride” was more than metaphorical over the weekend when he opened some eyes with a long touchdown run during practice, something that has been missing most of the time from the Ohio State offensive arsenal over the last three seasons.
Kelly said he does not want that to be a primary weapon, but Howard said it is part of his game.
“When I was a young kid, I was a pretty good runner,” he said. “When I got to high school, I was a tall, skinny pocket passer kind of, and I wasn’t really known for my running ability. I ran it from time to time, but when I got to K-State, I put on a little weight, and I started to get a little stronger in my leg areas and actually my first start against TCU, third play of the game, I ripped off an 80-yard QB draw, which I surprised myself a little bit.
“I had had some good runs in camp, and people knew I was a good athlete, but I was like, ‘Man, did I really just do that?’ From then on, it just kind of became a part of my game, and I just got more and more confident with it. The more you do it, the better you get at it. Throughout my whole career there, obviously I ran the ball a good amount.”
While the question of the early part of preseason is who will be the starting quarterback, Howard said he is trying not to focus on that.
“I’m just trying to be the best version of myself every single day,” Howard said. “That’s all I’m trying to do. Whenever I get thrown in there, I’m going to go in there and make the best out of my reps and show this team that I’m going to fight for them and do everything that we need to do to win. That’s all that matters to me, just getting better and being the best teammate I can be.”
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