'Story of my life': Rookie QB Will Howard is just fine joining Steelers while under the radar

PITTSBURGH — Will Howard is used to being the underdog. It's become part of his identity. Tell him he's not good enough, and he'll make it his life's mission to prove you wrong. The Steelers' rookie quarterback has done that every step of the way during his football career. At Downingtown West High School in Chester County, Pa., Howard was an overlooked 3-star prospect who failed to get Penn State or Pitt to extend him a scholarship offer. The only school in his home state to offer a scholarship was Temple. Howard ended up 1,216 miles away at Kansas State University. He started games as a freshman and sophomore and led the Wildcats to a Big 12 championship and an appearance in the Sugar Bowl as a junior, but the coaches there never fully embraced him. They kept recruiting over him and sending him to the bench. Howard would stay, compete and eventually regain his job, only to do it all over again the next season with a new quarterback on the scene. Not even a storybook ending to his college career gave Howard the acceptance he'd been seeking. He transferred to Ohio State for his final year of college eligibility and led the Buckeyes to the national championship. But the National Football League was unimpressed. Howard was the No. 185th overall pick in the sixth round and the eighth quarterback taken in the draft. It's a different uniform, but Howard has been here before — bottom of the depth chart, odds stacked against him and intent on proving people wrong. "That's the story of my life," Howard said Friday morning after his first professional practice at rookie minicamp. "To be in the NFL, you're always fighting for a job no matter what. If you're not on your game one day, you can be gone. It's a business. "The things I went through, learning how to push through adversity and how to come back from bad things, I learned so much. That gave me a pretty hard head. I have a chip on my shoulder. I like to carry that with me. The Steelers are built on being blue collar, and that's how I like to play — hard-nosed. That's what I like to be all about." Downingtown Made It's still a mystery to Howard's high school coaches why he didn't garner scholarship offers from the nation's top programs, but a season-ending arm injury during his junior season played a role. High school recruiting has changed a lot over the years, but the importance of the junior season remains a constant. It's the final chance for college coaches to evaluate a prospect before signing day. To know Will Howard is to understand how he handled the rest of his junior season. "He had surgery, and three days later, he was at practice helping our backup quarterback," said Downingtown West coach Tom Kline. "We ended up making a deep run in the playoffs that year. The team was everything to him. That's who he is." Ryan Wetzel, a tight end and linebacker, was moved to quarterback with Howard out of the lineup and his backup in concussion protocol. Howard taught him everything he had to know in a few days. On that Friday night, Downingtown West defeated crosstown rival Downingtown East, 28-7. Wetzel was 11 for 15 for 154 and ran for two touchdowns. "My coaching staff is still mad at me because I said Will was the best coach on our staff that year," retired Downingtown West head coach Mike Milano joked. Downingtown split into two high schools in 2003, and the victory for West was its first for the seniors against their rivals. Football is important to this suburb 33 miles west of Philadelphia and in the surrounding areas, especially at the Catholic and prep schools that try to pry talent away from the public schools. Howard was recruited by perennial power Saint Joseph's Prep and Malvern Prep among other private schools, but he wanted to play for his hometown team. He returned for his senior season and led Downingtown West to the PIAA 6A semifinal. He threw for more than 2,500 yards and had 27 touchdown passes and was named the Maxwell Football Club Pennsylvania Player of the year. "Will is very proud of where he came from," Howard's mother, Maureen, said. "He wanted to stay and play with his buddies he grew up with. He's deeply connected to the community." Five years after he graduated, Howard remains close to his roots. A couple of weeks after he quarterbacked Ohio State to the national championship, his elementary school, Shamona Creek, held a parade in his honor. Howard arrived with a police escort and was greeted outside by children holding signs. Two days before the draft, Downingtown West honored Howard at a lacrosse game. He stayed for the entire game and signed autographs for all of the children in attendance. Then on the day he was drafted, hours after the Steelers selected him, the Howard family held a party at Liberty Union restaurant that turned into an impromptu five-year reunion with his classmates. "All of his teammates from our graduating class in 2020 were there," Kline said. "He made sure everyone was invited. He doesn't forget where he came from. He's a special young man. I've been a lifelong Steelers fan, and I know they build their teams from players with character. They drafted someone with character in Will." Will's Way Downingtown instilled Howard with humility and his competitive nature, and he needed every shred of it to deal with the ups and downs of his recruiting story and his roller coaster college years. His coaches knew he had the talent and intangibles to play anywhere, but they felt powerless when he couldn't play after his surgery. "Schools were flying in wanting to see him throw, and he couldn't throw," Milano said. A few Power Five schools such as Rutgers, Minnesota and Maryland eventually offered scholarships, but there were more from Ivy League and Mid-American Conference schools. By the end of his high school career, ESPN had him rated as the 26th-best dual-threat quarterback in the 2020 class. Howard isn't going to stand out in terms of his athleticism or arm strength, but he's made a living by being detailed and disciplined with his reads and determined in his leadership. "I don't know if some were scared off by the injury, but he was a highly productive quarterback during his high school career," Kline said. "I don't know if anyone got the wow factor with him, but we got to see him every day. If you're with him every day, you see the special qualities he has. "I've been a high school coach for 31 years, and I've never seen a kid read the field like he does. Every decision he made for us was the right one. It just seemed super easy to him. I've never had a kid who is as smart as he is." Those qualities led to early success at Kansas State. He earned the backup job behind Skylar Thompson as a true freshman and ended up starting seven games after Thompson was injured. Still, Kansas State coaches weren't convinced Howard was their future. They signed Nebraska transfer Adrian Martinez out of the transfer portal to compete with Howard. Martinez won the starting job and played the first seven games before getting injured. Howard took over and led the Wildcats on a late-season run. They won the Big 12 championship with an overtime victory over TCU and played Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. That wasn't good enough for the Wildcats, either. The coaches brought in competition for Howard. This time it was highly touted recruit Avery Johnson, who chose the Wildcats over Oregon and Washington. Howard started 12 games and played well in 2023, but Kansas State planned to play Johnson in 2024, prompting Howard to enter the portal and eventually sign with Ohio State. "Will is a grinder," Milano said. "He perseveres. We talked about the portal when they brought in Martinez, but he wanted to stay and compete. And that's what he did. When Martinez got hurt, he led that team. Every year he was in college, he had to prove himself." The road to Ohio State's ninth national title went through Beaver Stadium in University Park, where the Buckeyes upended Penn State, 20-13, on Nov. 2. It was a game the Buckeyes would later need to qualify for the College Football Playoff after they lost to archrival Michigan in the final game of the regular season a few weeks later. That was most important to Howard, but beating the team that spurned him meant a lot to him, as well. "He wanted to be a Nittany Lion," Ohio State coach Ryan Day said after the game. "He refused to lose." That was a full-circle moment for Howard, but the quest to prove his doubters wrong continues. Howard boldly stated before the draft he was the best quarterback in the class, but he watched Cam Ward, Jaxson Dart, Tyler Shough, Dillon Gabriel, Jalen Milroe, Shedeur Sanders and Kyle McCord get drafted before him. The scenery has changed, but Howard's mission hasn't. "He's felt like he's been overlooked his whole life," Milano said. Howard is motivated by his draft snub, but in a way, he's OK with how things worked out. The Steelers were the team he wanted to play for all along. "Everything kind of fell into place," Howard said. "As the draft goes on, you never know what's going to happen. You never really know where you're going to go, but you keep a soft spot for where you want to go. I had a little soft spot for Pittsburgh. I was hoping in my heart they would pick me. I could not be in a better place. Pittsburgh is going to get my all every single day."