Your (almost) daily dose of good-natured, Ohio State banter.
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 Buckeyes we expect to excel this season. You can catch up on all of the Theme Week content here and all our “Players to Watch” articles here.
At this year’s NFL Draft, Ohio State saw 14 players selected, tying a school record. Had one other Ohio State player been taken in the seven-round event, the Buckeyes would have tied Georgia for the most players picked in a single draft. Emeka Egbuka was the first Buckeye selected when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers took the wide receiver with the 19th pick in the first round. Overall, four Ohio State players were selected in the first round of this year’s draft, marking the 10th straight season in which at least one Buckeye was drafted in the first round.
Now that the 2025 NFL Draft has been completed, it’s time to start looking towards the 2026 NFL Draft! To anyone who has watched even a little bit of Ohio State football, it’s pretty obvious that safety Caleb Downs is going to be a top-10 pick next year when he is eligible to enter the draft. Who might join Downs in the first round next April isn’t quite as obvious. If recent trends continue, smart money would be on Carnell Tate since the Buckeyes have had five wide receivers selected in the first round over the last four drafts.
Today, as part of our Players to Watch Week, we want to know what Ohio State “sleeper” you are targeting to be selected in the first round next year. Since Downs is consistently mocked in the top 10 of next year’s draft, he wouldn’t qualify as a sleeper. The rest of the team is fair game, though.
Maybe you see Tate flourishing as he steps into a bigger role, or Sonny Styles is primed to take another big step in his second season as a starter at linebacker. Since the Buckeyes are loaded with talent, there are plenty of options that could be choices here.
You’re Nuts: Which Ohio State player is a sleeper to be a 2026 first-round pick?
We’d love to hear your choices. Either respond to us on Twitter at @Landgrant33 or leave your choice in the comments.
Brett’s answer: Ethan Onianwa
The name might not be familiar to Ohio State fans quite yet, but they’ll certainly know it by the fall. Since arriving at Rice in 2021, the offensive tackle has started 34 games for the Owls. Onianwa started 25 games at right tackle from 2021 to 2023 before moving to left tackle last season. Expect Onianwa to take over at left tackle for Ohio State this fall, while Minnesota transfer Phillip Daniels is slated to be the starter at right tackle for the Buckeyes.
What makes Onianwa an intriguing prospect is that he is massive, even by offensive tackle standards. The former three-star recruit measures 6-6 and tips the scales at 345 pounds. It’s obvious that Onianwa is getting better each year on the field since Ohio State wouldn’t have targeted him in the transfer portal if they didn’t think he could step right in and be productive on an offensive line that will be tasked with protecting a new starting quarterback, as well as trying to clear running lanes for a backfield that will be trying to replace TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins.
I feel like Onianwa could follow the same type of path that Josh Simmons did to get to the NFL. Simmons started his career at San Diego State before transferring to Ohio State, where he would start in 2023 and 2024 at right tackle before suffering a season-ending knee injury against Oregon in October. Despite the injury concerns, Simmons went on to be taken at the end of the first round by the Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday. Onianwa should immediately step in to be the starter at left tackle, which will allow scouts to get a good look at him when the Buckeyes host Texas in the season opener.
I’m not claiming to be some draft guru, I just think Onianwa has the tools and size that will make him attractive to NFL teams. While Onianwa isn’t mocked in the first round of the 2026 draft, a lot can change in a year. Cam Ward wasn’t projected to be the top pick in the draft last year at this time, and nobody was expecting Quinn Ewers to drop to the seventh round. I think by the time Ohio State’s 2025 season ends and draft talk starts heating up, Onianwa will be gaining momentum to be a first-round pick.
Matt’s answer: Sonny Styles
Is Sonny a sleeper? I mean, he was a five-star prospect coming out of high school. He was the No. 1 safety in the 2022 recruiting class. His father played six seasons in the NFL and won a Super Bowl. So, there is probably no one in or around the college football world who was ever truly sleeping on Sonny Styles.
And yet, things really didn’t go as planned for Sonny. After reclassifying, he recorded only nine tackles as a true freshman, playing nearly the entire regular season as a 17-year-old. As a sophomore, he earned a spot as a starting safety, notching 53 tackles. Despite the fact that he was fairly successful in Jim Knowles’ safety-focused defense, at 6-foot-4 and 235 pounds, his body was much more in line with that of a linebacker.
So, in his third season, he moved to LB where he started alongside veteran Cody Simon. Styles started the season with the green dot on his helmet, indicating that he could hear the coaches through the radio in his helmet; meaning that he would be making the calls for the defense. However, as the season progressed, that responsibility eventually fell to Simon.
Despite the change, Styles earned second-team all-conference honors and finished the national championship run with exactly 100 tackles. I have to imagine that in the world that the Styles family initially envisioned, Sonny would have already been doing OTAs with an NFL team at this point. A prized recruit doesn’t usually reclassify with the intention of playing four years of college football, yet Sonny will be back in the scarlet and gray this fall as one of the veteran most players on the defense.
Given the athleticism that Styles has always shown, it will be interesting to see him with a full year of playing time as a linebacker under his belt. Last year, despite his stats and accolades, he was only the 16th-rated OSU defender from Pro Football Focus, and the fourth-rated linebacker behind Simon, Reese, and backup Gabe Powers; but he only played 29 snaps on the season, so that comparison isn’t exactly fair.
Nonetheless, everyone has always known what Styles could do from an athletic standpoint, and now that he has a year’s worth of experience to couple with that physical prowess, I think that come next spring, we could finally see Sonny in the first round, where we always thought he would be… just a year later than anticipated. Although, had he remained a member of the 2023 class, as he originally planned, 2026 would have been the earliest he could have entered the NFL Draft anyway, so no harm, no foul, I suppose.