Vikings select Buckeyes OG Wyatt Davis at No. 86 in third round
The second Buckeye offensive lineman in the 2021 NFL Draft class is off the board, as former Ohio State guard Wyatt Davis was selected with the No. 86 overall pick on Friday.
Davis, who was taken by the Minnesota Vikings in the third round on the second day of the draft, follows former teammates Justin Fields, Pete Werner and Josh Myers, who were each selected in the first two rounds.
The California native that entered former Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer’s program as a five-star recruit in 2017, was expected to go anywhere between the late first and third round.
Davis played through a knee injury for the latter half of this past season, but did not have to undergo surgery following January’s national championship game. Davis discussed the injury with the media at Ohio State Pro Day in March and said he did not regret keeping the matter quiet.
"Even if I would’ve known what my injury was prior, I still would’ve played, just because we were right there," Davis said. "It was either all in or nothing, so it was pretty easy for me to make that decision.”
Davis elected to return for a fourth year with the Buckeyes following a stellar 2019 season, which was his first full slate as a starter, but briefly declared for the NFL Draft before the 2020 season even began.
A month after the Big Ten announced it would cancel its fall football season, Davis declared for the draft, but the conference reinstated the season just days later. Davis returned for one final season with the Buckeyes, and it took him all the way to the national championship game.
Davis, who was named to the Big Ten’s All-Decade team this past summer despite just one full season of starting experience to that point, was named the Big Ten’s Offensive Lineman of the Year in 2020.
Davis earned the elite status of consensus All-American, and helped lead an Ohio State offense that entered the national championship game ranked No. 5 in the country in rushing and scoring offense and No. 4 in total offense.
With COVID-19 causing absences on the Buckeye front line from game-to-game, Davis is the only member of the Ohio State offensive line to start every game in 2020.
Davis was a first-year team captain in 2020, and seemed to play through an injury in his right knee that hampered him in several games down the stretch of the season, and eventually knocked him out of the national championship game against Alabama.
The selection of Davis extends a streak of three-straight seasons in which an Ohio State offensive guard has been taken in the draft, and the last time no Buckeye offensive lineman was taken in the draft was 2015.