Ohio State has been a fixture in terms of programs that repeatedly put players into the NFL. You would have to go back to the 2013 draft class to find the last time that Ohio State put fewer than five players into the league by way of the draft.
In fact, Ohio State has put double-digit players in the draft through the past two classes, 16 into the first round over the past six classes and 55 total players over that same period.
It should come as no surprise that Ohio State has recruited well through the years, but that doesn’t always equate, sometimes highly-rated collegiate players don’t translate well to the NFL game and conversely, sometimes there are players who may have been lowly rated coming out of high school for one reason or another who flourish at the next level when football becomes a full-time job.
It got us to thinking about how the past dozen or so classes breakdown in terms of how the rankings numbers translate to the NFL for Ohio State. We will look at a list of questions and breakdown who we got right, who we may have missed on and a whole lot more. For the sake of this exercise, we are only going to talk about players who ended their career with the Buckeyes, so players like Joe Burrow, who signed out of high school with Ohio State, will not be counted but players like Justin Fields and Trey Sermon will count.
This was not one of Ohio State’s biggest classes during the time period we are looking at, but it was still a quality class when you look at five players going in the first two days with a pair of first-rounders. Every single player in this draft class has played in the NFL, which is not something that every draft class can say with the ultra-competitive nature of making the 53-man roster, and then having your name called.
So, with this class devoid of that big name defensive end in the first round (think Bosa or Young) it is still a special one all things considered.
Total Number of drafted players: 7
Average star rating of drafted players: 3.7
Highest rated player to be drafted: Jerome Baker
Lowest rated player to be drafted: Denzel Ward
Biggest surprise: Denzel Ward blowing up late in his Ohio State career to be a first-rounder
The names of Jamel Dean, Josh Norwood and Damon Arnette were all talked about more than three-star Denzel Ward in Ohio State’s class of 2015, and while Arnette would go on to be drafted in the first-round as well (Dean would not be cleared by Ohio State team doctors, would transfer to Auburn and go in the third-round of the draft) it was Ward that would be drafted No. 4 overall by hometown Cleveland and sign a lucrative deal.
Ward would not even really see much action in his first season of 2015 with the Buckeyes but 2016-17 would see a combined 60 tackles, 24 PBUs and two picks.
The 2018 draft will be remembered as a defensive-first draft for Ohio State with all but two players representing the defensive side of the ball and strangely enough, there were no “skill” players taken with the other two spots going to members of the offensive line with Billy Price going to Cincinnati (1-21) and Jamarco Jones going to Seattle (5-168).
Three members of the Ohio State defensive line made it into this class with Tyquan Lewis (2-64), Sam Hubbard (3-77) and Jalyn Holmes (4-102), could that with the fact that Ohio State put two more members of the line in the following year’s draft and it goes to show you that while the Buckeyes have been claiming BIA when it comes to the secondary, the defensive line has been right there, and while it may not have the same number of first-rounders, the Buckeyes have been supplying defensive linemen to the league for years and years.
As of publication, every member of this class is still on an active roster, once again, another great accomplishment. This 2018 class is not the biggest, nor is it the highest rated but it is certainly one to remember at this point of the game.
