There will be no shortage of intrigue from the first round to the last for Ohio State fans in this year’s NFL draft.
While the defending national champions will likely have to wait a little while for the first Buckeye to be selected, as Ohio State isn’t expected to have any top-10 picks, the 2025 draft could prove to be the most prolific in school history by the time it concludes Saturday. Tying the record for the most players selected in a seven-round NFL draft appears well within reach, and there’s an outside chance Ohio State could even break that record.
Once the draft gets into the second half of the first round on Thursday night, the possibility of a Buckeye being selected will be on the table with just about every pick from that point forward. With at least one draft prospect at every single position group on offense and defense, there’s a possibility that your favorite NFL team will draft a Buckeye this year no matter which professional franchise you root for.
With the 2025 NFL draft set to begin at 8 p.m. Thursday in Green Bay (ABC, ESPN and NFL Network), we take one last look at the biggest storylines surrounding Ohio State and its prospects in this year’s draft.
Will Ohio State tie or break the record for most draft picks?
Since the NFL draft was shortened to seven rounds in 1994, only one school has ever had 15 players drafted in the same year (Georgia, 2022). Ohio State has a great chance to tie that record over the next three days.
Among Ohio State’s 17 draft prospects, 15 of them are just about unanimously projected to be chosen. Per the consensus big board on NFL Mock Draft Database, Josh Simmons (24), Emeka Egbuka (33), Donovan Jackson (38), TreVeyon Henderson (42), Tyleik Williams (43), JT Tuimoloau (53), Quinshon Judkins (54), Jack Sawyer (61), Will Howard (101), Denzel Burke (112), Lathan Ransom (115), Ty Hamilton (134), Seth McLaughlin (147), Jordan Hancock (167) and Cody Simon (173) are all ranked well within the draft’s top 200 prospects. There will be 257 total picks across three days.
Ohio State’s 2025 NFL Draft Prospects
- QB Will Howard
- RB TreVeyon Henderson
- RB Quinshon Judkins
- WR Emeka Egbuka
- TE Gee Scott Jr.
- OT Josh Simmons
- OT Josh Fryar
- OG Donovan Jackson
- C Seth McLaughlin
- DE Jack Sawyer
- DE JT Tuimoloau
- DT Ty Hamilton
- DT Tyleik Williams
- LB Cody Simon
- CB Denzel Burke
- CB Jordan Hancock
- S Lathan Ransom
To set a new mark for the most players selected in a single draft, Ohio State would also need either Gee Scott Jr. or Josh Fryar to be drafted. Both of them are ranked outside the top 500 prospects on the consensus big board, so it doesn’t seem likely that Ohio State will reach the record-breaking number of 16, though it’s not out of the question.
Either way, Ohio State will break its school record for the most players ever selected in one draft if it reaches its expected total of 15 selections. Ohio State previously set the record for the most players selected in a draft when it had 14 picks in 2004.
Correlating the consensus rankings with the draft board, Ohio State projects to have nine players selected in the first three rounds. If a couple of Burke, Ransom, Hamilton, McLaughlin, Hancock or Simon also get drafted by the end of Round 3, however, Ohio State could also have a chance to break the all-time record for players selected in the first three rounds of a draft. Ohio State’s 2016 draft class and LSU’s 2020 draft class currently share that record with 10 picks in the first three rounds each.
How many Buckeyes will be first-round picks?
While this year’s Ohio State draft class might prove to be its deepest ever, the one thing it lacks is a true top-of-the-board prospect. Because the two members of last year’s national championship team who would be sure-fire first-round picks (Jeremiah Smith and Caleb Downs) aren’t yet draft-eligible, this will likely be the first year since 2015 that Ohio State doesn’t have a player drafted in the top 11 picks.
Ohio State fans might be wise to set their expectations low and their hopes high in terms of how many players will be drafted Thursday night. None of Ohio State’s draft prospects are true first-round locks, leaving a scenario in play that Round 1 could come and go without a single Buckeye being drafted. Yet Ohio State could also have as many as five players drafted without anything truly shocking happening.
Simmons has been the most consistently projected first-round pick throughout the draft process, though there’s still some uncertainty about whether he’ll be one of Thursday night’s 32 picks due to the season-ending knee injury he’s still recovering from. Henderson appears to be trending toward a first-round selection as either the second or third running back drafted, but that’s still far from guaranteed. Egbuka has been projected as a first-round pick in most mock drafts, and Jackson’s chances of being a first-round pick also seem to be trending up, but it wouldn’t be shocking if either of them fell into Round 2.
Williams, Tuimoloau and Judkins have been projected as second-round picks in most mock drafts, but it wouldn’t be stunning to see any of them come off the board late in Round 1 either.
Ohio State’s current school record for first-round picks in one draft came in 2016, when the Buckeyes had five first-rounders. That record will likely survive this year, but there will be plenty of Buckeyes anxiously hoping for a phone call during the late stages of Thursday’s first round.
Where does Will Howard get drafted?
The most polarizing Buckeye in this year’s draft in terms of where he should be drafted might – not coincidentally – be the one who plays football’s most high-profile position. Even though Will Howard led Ohio State to a national championship with a spectacular four-game run in the College Football Playoff, many still question whether he can be more than a backup quarterback in the NFL.
It only takes one team to believe in Howard’s ability to be a future NFL starter, however, for him to end up being an early-round pick. While there’s no expectation that Howard will be a first-round pick, there will be plenty of intrigue entering Friday night on whether Howard will be a second- or third-round pick. If no one views Howard as a likely future starter, however, he could find himself waiting until Day 3 to hear his name called.
That said, the team that ultimately drafts Howard can expect the former Buckeye to come in with confidence in his ability to be a successful NFL quarterback no matter when he comes off the board.
"I believe I'm the best quarterback in this class," Howard told ESPN earlier this month. "If you're going to be a competitor, at the end of the day, you have to have that belief in yourself.”
Adding another layer of intrigue to the draft for Ohio State fans is the fact that Howard is vying for position in the quarterback draft class alongside two other former Buckeye quarterbacks, Quinn Ewers and Kyle McCord, who finished their careers elsewhere (Ewers at Texas, McCord at Syracuse).
Miami’s Cam Ward, Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders, Mississippi’s Jaxson Dart, Alabama’s Jalen Milroe and Louisville’s Tyler Shough are projected to be the first five quarterbacks drafted in one order or another, but the next three quarterbacks off the board after them are projected to be some combination of Howard, Ewers and McCord. Howard holds a higher consensus big board ranking than Ewers (120) and McCord (137), yet there are plenty of mock drafts that have one or both of Ewers or McCord going above Howard.
Ohio State’s successful championship run with Howard at the helm left no doubt that Howard was the right quarterback for the Buckeyes last season. Nothing that happens in the draft or their respective NFL careers will change that. But they’ll be forever compared to each other because any one of them could have been Ohio State’s quarterback last season under the right circumstances, and where each of them gets drafted will serve as the first comparison between them at the professional level.
Need-to-Know Info
The 2025 NFL draft begins at 8 p.m. Thursday with the first round, continues 7 p.m. Friday with the second and third rounds and concludes Saturday, starting at noon, with the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh rounds. All seven rounds of the draft will be televised by ABC, ESPN and NFL Network, though Day 2 will be televised by ESPN2 rather than ESPN due to ESPN’s NBA playoffs coverage on Friday.
Eleven Warriors will have coverage of every Ohio State draft pick as it happens, so stay tuned throughout the draft for everything you need to know about what could be a historic draft for the scarlet and gray.
