Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Will Howard transferred to Ohio State for his senior season of college football in 2024. He became a key factor in Ryan Day’s Buckeyes finishing with a 14-2 record and defeating Notre Dame 34-23 to capture the 2024 national championship.What few realize is that Howard nearly ended up on the opposite sideline playing for Marcus Freeman’s Irish."I thought I was gonna end up at Notre Dame," Howard said Wednesday on the "Not Just Football" podcast hosted by his Steelers' teammate and fellow former Buckeye Cam Heyward. "A lot of people don't know this. Like, this was very under wraps."But they ended up signing Riley right before I was about to commit. I was about to commit that day, and I call my agent and he's like, 'Sorry buddy, they just told me they took Riley (Leonard).'"Howard had originally enrolled early at Kansas State in January 2020, but he entered the transfer portal in November 2023, after his junior year. Around that time, talks with Notre Dame began to develop, until the Irish ultimately chose Leonard instead."They weren't even talking about him," Howard said. "So that pissed me off. And a lot of people don't know that that had happened going into the national championship."So I remember the general manager was standing on the sideline right when we were warming up and I was staring daggers through him the whole warmup. And I'm a chip-on-my-shoulder guy."Leonard, who Notre Dame selected over Howard, previously played at Duke. Both Leonard and Howard were three-star prospects during their high school career.Will Howard was focused on chasing a championship after choosing Ohio State On Jan. 20, 2025, Will Howard guided Ohio State to its first national championship in a decade, defeating Notre Dame in the title game. The foundation for that moment was laid more than a year earlier, when Howard committed to the Buckeyes on Jan. 4, 2024."When I started talking to Ohio State, everything kind of lined up," Howard told ESPN’s Pete Thamel following his transfer to OSU in 2024. "I had a list of things I was looking for, in terms of needing to go somewhere where there was a lot of talent around me and somewhere I could compete for a national championship."Howard delivered on that vision, completing 17 of 21 passes for 231 yards and two touchdowns, while also rushing 16 times for 57 yards in OSU's championship game against Notre Dame.