College Football

Ohio State to honor Dwayne Haskins at spring game

Published Apr. 11, 2022 2:30 p.m. ET

The Ohio State Buckeyes will honor former quarterback Dwayne Haskins at their spring game on Saturday, according to a report by ESPN.

Haskins, 24, was killed early Saturday morning when he was hit by a dump truck while he was walking on a South Florida highway. He had been training with other Pittsburgh Steelers players in the area.

At Ohio State, Haskins set single-season records for touchdown passes (50) and yards passing (4,831). He was the 2019 Rose Bowl MVP as the Buckeyes went 13-1. He then became the first Ohio State quarterback drafted in the first round of the NFL draft since 1982.

"He was 11 years old, walking through this facility and said that, 'This is what I'm going to do,' and then did it," Ohio State coach Ryan Day, who served as Ohio State's offensive coordinator, quarterbacks coach and interim head coach during Haskins' final two seasons with the program, told ESPN. "That's the legacy he's going to leave behind: You can set a dream and goal and achieve it, and then broke a lot of records that year in 2018. He set a dream and he chased it and he did it."

The Buckeyes will honor Haskins Saturday and again in the future, though plans are still being finalized, Day said.

"Buckeye nation meant a lot to Dwayne," Day said. "Having everybody there on Saturday is significant. And we'll make sure we do things the right way and then moving forward, we just want to make sure we do it the right way and think it through."

Day said that Haskins remained close to the program, including with Day's son RJ.

Day's son, RJ Day, who said Haskins took RJ to a high school football game and was "like a big brother" to him.

"We were in the car the other day, up at a little camp that [RJ] went to and we were driving back and trying to wrap our minds around it, and I didn't really have anything good to tell him, really," Day said. "I couldn't quite understand what to think of it all. It just very confusing, sad, but it makes you hug your loved ones a little bit more and just understand how fragile life is.

"But something like this is difficult to explain."