The NFL cares more about who wins the College Football Playoff national championship than most fans do. Just look at the past five years of first-round NFL Draft selections.
Since 1968, only eight programs have seen five of their players selected in the first round of the same NFL Draft, and three of those classes represented have all come in the 2020s. This year, Ohio State could make history with top-10 NFL Draft picks — and without a quarterback in the mix.
Looking back at past draft classes across all rounds, LSU (2019) had five players from that championship-winning group selected in the 2020 NFL Draft. Alabama (2020) had six players selected in the 2021 NFL Draft after it won the national title, and Georgia (2021) had five players drafted in 2022 after it won it all.
Of that trio, only Georgia’s 2021 draft class didn’t feature a quarterback selected in the first round. LSU’s Joe Burrow (2020) and Alabama’s Mac Jones (2021) were each top-15 picks. Digging just a little deeper into elite draft classes from a singular program, only the 2020 Alabama squad had three of its players selected inside the first 10 picks of the draft this decade. That’s tied with seven other programs for the most selections in the first 10 picks of any draft.
There’s one program that stands apart, though, not unlike the NFL’s 1972 Miami Dolphins, with an NFL Draft record that many believed might never be duplicated: 1967 Michigan State. That year, four players off the 1966 Michigan State national championship team were top-10 NFL Draft picks.
Heading into the 2026 NFL Draft, Ohio State could become the first program in modern history to duplicate the Spartans’ feat with four potential top-10 picks. And the Buckeyes could do it not only without a quarterback but also with just one offensive player selected: wide receiver Carnell Tate, safety Caleb Downs and linebackers Sonny Styles and Arvell Reese.
These now-former Ohio State players were part of a team that didn’t so much as sniff playing in the national title game last season and have not won a Big Ten title in their careers. Yet, the Buckeyes have developed four stars who could all hear their names called before the dinner served on the West Coast has a chance to get cold.
Arvell Reese during the 2026 NFL Scouting Combine. (Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images)
Given what NFL Draft analysts and NFL player personnel department members have intimated about Ohio State, the best team in the sport — perhaps the team that should’ve defeated Indiana in the Big Ten title game and on the way to a national championship — should’ve done more.
“That’s right,” an NFL area scout for a team with a top-10 pick told me. “Just take the Reese kid, for example. I’m a college football fan. I know about the Downs kid. I know about [the] Types child and [the] Tate child, however their greatest participant is [Reese], a man who couldn’t even get onto the sector till 2024. They’re loaded.
“It’s Ohio State. They’re all the time loaded, however I’d name final 12 months a letdown based mostly on what the league thinks of their class.”
After dropping the Large Ten championship matchup in December to eventual national champion Indiana, the Buckeyes lost to Miami (Fla.) within the CFP quarterfinals.
A quarterback on this class would elevate it to a unique degree, simply as it might’ve for Georgia in 2022. Nonetheless, in contrast to the Bulldogs, the Buckeyes have a signal-caller in Julian Sayin that many consider shall be a first-round choice in 2027. That was not the case with former Georgia passer Stetson Bennett, who by no means projected as a first-round expertise and was finally chosen within the fourth spherical.
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And in contrast to Georgia head coach Kirby Sensible, Ohio State’s Ryan Day has a knack for growing quarterbacks into first-round NFL Draft picks. He did it with Dwayne Haskins, Justin Fields and once more with C.J. Stroud — and that’s simply since he joined the Buckeyes in 2017. That half is well-known.
What Day and his employees have performed at different positions, notably vast receiver, is about to turn out to be simply as distinguished a truth.
Take into account not simply that Ohio State wideouts have turn out to be prized commodities within the NFL but additionally that such a growth has been latest and constant. Between 2008 and 2021, the Buckeyes did not develop a single first-round choice at vast receiver, regardless of gamers like Michael Thomas (a second-round decide) and Terry McLaurin (a third-round choice) turning out to be All-Professional-caliber wideouts within the NFL.
Since 2022, nonetheless, no program has a greater declare to “WRU” than the Buckeyes. In reality, Ohio State has had a large receiver chosen within the first spherical of the NFL Draft each single 12 months since then. No different program has seen greater than three consecutive years of wideouts chosen from its program, and there are solely two on the listing: Tennessee (1982-1984) and Alabama (2020-2022).
Carnell Tateparticipates in drills throughout 2026 Ohio State Professional Day. (Picture by Jason Mowry/Getty Photographs)
I’m solely counting years, not gamers. If I counted gamers, the Buckeyes have had 5 vast receivers chosen within the first spherical of the NFL Draft up to now 4 years. If Tate is drafted within the first spherical on Thursday, that might make him the sixth Ohio State receiver chosen within the first spherical in 5 consecutive years.
Then there’s nonetheless the person who has been tagged because the presumptive No. 1 decide within the 2027 NFL Draft because the day he arrived in Columbus, Ohio: vast receiver Jeremiah Smith.
Smith, who presumably will be part of Sayin within the 2027 draft, may lead yet one more slightly exceptional Ohio State draft class subsequent 12 months whereas furthering what has turn out to be a burgeoning Buckeyes custom of seeing a large receiver chosen within the first spherical. There are extra on deck, too.
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The efficiency 6-foot-5, true freshman Chris Henry, Jr. put in simply last Saturday during Ohio State’s spring game looks like a harbinger of what’s to return. Junior receiver Brandon Inniss earned the spot throughout the sector from Smith that after belonged to former first-round decide Emeka Egbuka and Tate. If Inniss performs in addition to his predecessors, he may be part of Smith within the first spherical of subsequent 12 months’s draft.
That is additionally proof that Ohio State’s recruiting technique is working on this school soccer period stuffed with risky switch portal exercise and undisclosed tens of millions altering palms from companies, universities and donors to gamers — dare I say “student-athletes.”
The Buckeyes’ brass understands its followers demand excellence, and the NFL is very happy to reap the benefits of Ohio State’s urge for food to develop and be the perfect soccer program in America.
