\n Ohio State lost five players to early NFL draft entries, but the Buckeyes are retaining seven draft-eligible starters. <\/p>\n
\n\tThere weren\u2019t any big surprises among the Ohio State players who announced they would enter the 2026 NFL draft.\u00a0While Ohio State would have loved to have Caleb Downs, Arvell Reese, Carnell Tate or\u00a0Kayden McDonald back for another season, it would have come as a big surprise if any of them had stayed in school, given that all of them are projected first-round picks. Max Klare would have had more reason to play another season at Ohio State, as he isn\u2019t projected to be a first-round pick, but there was always a thought that his transfer to OSU could be for just one year.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tOhio State was successful in convincing\u00a0all of its other draft-eligible starters from last season to remain Buckeyes for another year. Wide receiver Brandon Inniss<\/a>, offensive linemen\u00a0Austin Siereveld<\/a>, Luke Montgomery<\/a> and Carson Hinzman<\/a>,\u00a0defensive end Kenyatta Jackson Jr.<\/a>\u00a0and cornerback Jermaine Mathews Jr.<\/a> have all confirmed they are returning to Ohio State for the 2026 season. Right tackle Phillip Daniels has not made a public announcement, but was not included on the list of players who declared for early entry that the NFL released Thursday<\/a>, confirming he will be back at Ohio State barring a surprise transfer portal entry.\n<\/p>\n \n\tWith that, we\u2019re taking a look at which Buckeyes\u00a0chose to forgo their remaining eligibility to enter the 2026 NFL draft, which Buckeyes that could have entered the draft are staying\u00a0in college for another year, and which Buckeyes were already in the draft after exhausting their eligibility last season.\n<\/p>\n \tEntered Draft Early (5)<\/p>\n \n\tS Caleb Downs \n\tDowns, Reese and Tate are all first-round locks; Reese and Downs are both widely projected to be top-10 overall picks, and Tate could be, too. Most early mock drafts have McDonald being selected in the second half of the first round after his unanimous All-American season<\/a> in 2025.\n<\/p>\n \n\tFrom an NFL draft stock perspective, the only Buckeye who\u2019s entered the draft with another year of eligibility that had reason to stay at Ohio State was Klare. Currently projected as a likely third-round draft pick, Klare could have potentially improved his draft stock in 2026 by putting up bigger numbers as a pass-catcher and continuing to improve as a blocker. Unlike Downs, McDonald, Reese and Tate, however, Klare has already played four years of college football; he had a fifth year of eligibility because he redshirted his first season at Purdue in 2022, but ultimately decided not to use it.\n<\/p>\n \tDraft-Eligible Returning Starters\u00a0(7)<\/p>\n \n\tWR Brandon Inniss \n\tSiereveld, Montgomery and Hinzman all would have had a shot at being drafted if they had entered the draft, with Siereveld likely drafted first among them, but all of them made a smart decision to stay at Ohio State for another year. Siereveld and Montgomery have only been full-time starters for one season, so another year at Ohio State should help them continue to develop and elevate their draft stock. Hinzman has more experience but was projected to be a late-round pick, so he\u2019ll look to boost his stock with a big final season as a Buckeye.\n<\/p>\n \n\tInniss likely would have gone undrafted after catching just 36 passes for 271 yards and three touchdowns in his first season as a starter, so it would have come as a surprise if he had entered the draft early.\n<\/p>\n \n\tJackson was seen as the biggest threat to leave from this group \u2013 in part because, like Klare, he\u2019s already been in college for four years. But Jackson entered last season with expectations of being a first-round draft pick, and he would have more likely been a third- or fourth-round pick if he entered the draft this year. By staying at Ohio State, he has a chance to maximize his draft stock as the leader of the Buckeyes\u2019 defensive line in his second year as a starter.\n<\/p>\n \n\tMathews was also a potential middle-round pick if he declared for the NFL draft, but he has plenty of room to improve his draft stock as he\u2019s only been a full-time starter at Ohio State for one year. Daniels was never seen as a likely candidate to enter the NFL draft, especially considering he still has two more years of eligibility, but is listed here since he was a starter for the Buckeyes in 2025 and could have entered the draft as a redshirt sophomore.\n<\/p>\n \tOutgoing Seniors (11)<\/p>\n \n\tLB Sonny Styles \n\tAll of these players became NFL draft prospects as soon as Ohio State\u2019s season ended, as each of them exhausted their collegiate eligibility in 2025.\n<\/p>\n \n\tSonny Styles is the top draft prospect among Ohio State\u2019s outgoing seniors as a projected first-round pick. If Styles, Downs, McDonald, Reese and Tate are all selected in Round 1, Ohio State would tie its school record with five first-round picks, a mark it previously hit 20 years ago in 2006 and again 10 years ago in 2016.\n<\/p>\n \n\tCurry and Igbinosun both project as likely middle-round draft picks while Kacmarek will be a prospect to watch on Day 3. The rest of Ohio State\u2019s seniors currently appear likely to go undrafted, though Lorenzo Styles, Malone, Donaldson, Onianwa and Ferlmann should at least get opportunities to compete for roster spots as undrafted free agents.\n<\/p>\n \n\tNote:\u00a0This article was updated after Kenyatta Jackson Jr.<\/a>\u00a0and Jermaine Mathews Jr.<\/a> confirmed their returns to Ohio State on Thursday and\u00a0the NFL confirmed that Downs, Klare, McDonald, Reese and Tate were the only five Buckeye who declared for early entry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ohio State lost five players to early NFL draft entries, but the Buckeyes are retaining seven draft-eligible starters.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-410815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
DT Kayden McDonald
LB Arvell Reese
WR Carnell Tate
TE Max Klare\n<\/p>\n
LT Austin Siereveld
LG Luke Montgomery
C Carson Hinzman
RT Phillip Daniels
DE Kenyatta Jackson Jr.
CB Jermaine Mathews Jr.\n<\/p>\n
DE Caden Curry
CB Davison Igbinosun
TE Will Kacmarek
CB Lorenzo Styles Jr.
DT Tywone Malone Jr.
RB CJ Donaldson
OL Ethan Onianwa
K Jayden Fielding
LS John Ferlmann
QB Eli Brickhandler\n<\/p>\n