From now until preseason camp starts in August, Land-Grant Holy Land will be writing articles around a different theme every week. This week is all about the things we think, but aren’t 100% confident on. You can catch up on all of the Theme Week content here and all our “What We Think We Know” articles here.
For Buckeye fans, there’s a bit of a Groundhog Day effect each winter when, inevitably, several of our top names announce they’re heading to the NFL.
The think pieces come in like clockwork: How
will we ever fill these enormous shoes?
It happened after the National Championship season in 2025, when the defense saw a mass exodus. We’re seeing it again now, after four Buckeyes were taken in the top 11 overall in the 2026 NFL Draft (Carnell Tate at No. 4, Arvell Reese at No. 5, Sonny Styles at No. 7 and Caleb Downs at No. 11).
Shortly behind them, Kayden McDonald, Max Klare and Davison Igbinosun were all taken in Round 2.
Whether we say it out loud or not, top programs ultimately exist as NFL incubators, so it’s nothing new for guys to leave. Even as analysts go back and forth about the impact of losing players to the pros, in my experience, I’ve noticed an underlying sense of calm when discussing roster turnover with other Buckeye fans.
It feels almost as if the consensus is that “rebuilding” is something other, lesser programs do, whereas OSU always seems to have plenty more where that came from.
In short, we think we know with some degree of certainty that we either already have the depth to reload for the next season or we can easily turn to the transfer portal to get it.
After all, this is not the first year we’ve lost four players in the first round. We saw the same in 2025 with Emeka Egbuka taken at No. 19, Donovan Jackson at No. 24, Tyleik Williams at No. 28 and Josh Simmons at No. 32.
In addition, 14 players were drafted overall in 2025 compared to 11 in 2026 (in both years, Ohio State led all programs, but 2025 tied the school and the Big Ten record for most players taken in a single draft).
On paper, then, it should have been harder to reload last season than in this upcoming one, and if that’s the case, there shouldn’t be anything to worry about.
Except that in 2025, four players weren’t taken in the top 11. That’s unfamiliar territory: Only twice before has one school had four players go in the top 11, and It’s been nearly 60 years since it last happened.
So as I try to maintain my confidence in our ability to restock the team, I worry history might be lulling me into a false sense of security. Am I appropriately accounting for the level of impact of this year’s draftees?
Take Carnell Tate for example. While Tate was WR2 behind Jeremiah Smith, part of the magic was watching the two of them work in tandem. It created problems for opposing defenses all season—Smith, a generational talent in the truest, least hyperbolic sense of the word, is too good to leave to his own devices. The problem is, so was Tate. When teams allocated the correct number of resources needed to shut Smith down, Tate got cooking.
Their dynamic—and the way both Smith and Tate played completely unselfish football—played a major role in the Buckeyes’ offensive success, especially on weeks when the run game struggled and the wide receivers had to do the heavy lifting. Chris Henry Jr. seems like the most likely replacement for Tate, and we saw him shine in the Spring Game, but assuming he gets the job, can he and Smith replicate the magic of Smith and Tate?
On the other side of the ball, the Buckeyes are pretty well-equipped at linebacker (especially with the new addition of Christian Alliegro via the portal), but safety Caleb Downs is so difficult to replace they’re turning to three different players to do so. Read that again: Caleb Downs was singlehandedly accomplishing something the coaches are turning to three players collectively for in the future.
No matter how much we trust Ryan Day and this coaching staff to have the team in shape by the start of the season, I’m feeling an unfamiliar nervousness about what we’ve lost in this offseason, and despite my deep desire to remain optimistic, perhaps it is more realistic to assume four pairs of shoes this massive won’t be as easy to fill as we might think, even for a program as storied as Ohio State’s.
