Ohio State's 2026 NFL Draft class closed Saturday with three Day 3 picks, bringing the program's two-year total — 2025 plus 2026 — to 25 selections. That ties a draft record set by Frank Leahy's USC in 1955 and 1956 and matched only twice in the seventy years since: by Alabama (2017-2018) and LSU (2019-2020). No program in the post-1990 NCAA recruiting era has matched it without a national title in one of the two seasons. Ohio State did, and it does not.
The class headliner was Carnell Tate, the Tennessee Titans' fourth-overall selection and the first wide receiver off the board. Tate was the first Buckeye drafted on Thursday night and earned the bragging rights inside the Buckeye locker room that come with going first. The 6-foot-3, 197-pound junior closed his Ohio State career with 78 catches for 1,213 yards and 12 touchdowns in 2025 — the highest single-season receiving total of any Buckeye since David Boston in 1998. The fit in Tennessee is straightforward: pair him with second-year quarterback Cameron Ward, give him 130-plus targets in the slot and the X, and let his contested-catch radius do the rest.
Caleb Downs went 11th overall to the Dallas Cowboys, who traded up one slot from Miami to grab him. The Cowboys sent picks Nos. 12, 177, and 180 to the Dolphins for the right to take Downs at 11 — a trade-up cost that several published boards (Bleacher Report, NFL.com) called above-market. Inside the Dallas building, the bet is that Downs is a Top-5 talent the Cowboys couldn't afford to risk a single slot of slip on. He is the most plug-and-play safety in the class and gives Dak Prescott's defense an immediate post-snap manipulator opposite Trevon Diggs in the secondary.
Sonny Styles went seventh overall to the Washington Commanders — the second Buckeye in the top ten and the highest-drafted off-ball linebacker since Devin White in 2019. Styles' 4.49 speed at 6'4" and 235 pounds is a generational athletic profile at the position. The Commanders' defense, rebuilding under Joe Whitt Jr., has needed an alpha second-level defender for two seasons and Styles fills the role in a way only one or two players a decade can. Our internal grade had Styles at No. 5 overall on talent; the Washington pick at 7 was the cleanest value of the top ten.
Arvell Reese went to the New York Giants in the second round — the third Ohio State linebacker drafted in the past two cycles and arguably the best three-down off-ball backer of the 2026 class. Max Klare went to Cleveland in the fourth round (the third tight end the Browns have drafted in three years; their offensive coordinator's plan to deploy 12-personnel as the base look is now fully resourced). Quinshon Judkins, Emeka Egbuka, and Donovan Jackson — the three Day 1 picks from the 2025 cycle — anchor the front-end of the two-year run. Cody Simon, JT Tuimoloau, Jack Sawyer, and Tyleik Williams from 2025 round it out on defense.
The recruiting question for Ryan Day's staff was always whether Ohio State could convert top-five recruiting classes into top-five draft classes. Twenty-five picks in two years is the answer, and it is now the answer with a margin large enough that the next four 2027 elite recruiting visits (Carter Spotts, Boobie Feaster, Jared Curtis, and Faheem Delane) are functionally a foregone conclusion. The Buckeyes have built the most efficient development pipeline in college football. The Tennessee Titans, the Cowboys, the Commanders, and the Giants all just bought from the same shelf.