\n With Ohio State\u2019s first 15 practices of the year in the books, we now have a better idea of who\u2019s on the rise and where things stand for the Buckeyes at every position group entering the 2026 season. <\/p>\n
\n\tNew Buckeyes were on the field at every position this spring as 51 new Ohio State players were part of the team that went through the Buckeyes\u2019 March and April practices. There were plenty of newcomers and returning Buckeyes alike who stood out on each side of the ball as players competed for position on the depth chart and looked to prove they can make an impact for OSU this season.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tWith the Buckeyes currently in a break from on-field activity before summer workouts ramp up in a few weeks, we\u2019re taking a position-by-position look at who stood out this spring, what questions still linger after spring, how the depth chart currently stacks up and the overall outlook for each position going into the summer.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tThe second half of our Spring Recap series begins with a position where the competition for a starting job will continue into the summer: Defensive end. Kenyatta Jackson Jr. looked ready this spring to take the next step and become a dominant player on the Buckeyes\u2019 defensive line, but the depth chart beyond him remains unsettled, though multiple other defensive ends made their case for starting jobs with strong starts to the offseason.\n<\/p>\n
\tSpring Standouts<\/p>\n
\tKenyatta Jackson Jr.<\/p>\n
\n\tJackson was Ohio State\u2019s most consistently dominant player in the trenches throughout the spring. The only returning starter on Ohio State\u2019s defensive line, Jackson regularly won one-on-one matchups off the edge during the spring game and other practices open to the media, especially when going up against the likes of Carter Lowe and other backup offensive tackles after Austin Siereveld and Phillip Daniels underwent surgeries that sidelined them for the second half of spring.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tGoing into last season, multiple Ohio State players said Jackson was looking like a future first-round NFL draft pick in offseason workouts. He didn\u2019t quite play up to that level, especially early in the season, which Jackson said this spring was partially due to injuries. But after a strong second half of last season, Jackson looked this spring like a player who\u2019s capable of living up to those lofty expectations and emerging as an elite defensive end as a fifth-year senior in 2026.\n<\/p>\n
\tBeau Atkinson<\/p>\n
\n\tAtkinson started the spring as a bit of an afterthought in the competition to be Ohio State\u2019s other starting defensive end. He had a disappointing first year as a Buckeye last season, recording just 11 tackles with 2.5 tackles for loss and one sack after transferring in from North Carolina.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tThis spring, however, Atkinson looked like the player Ohio State thought it was getting a year ago. Being able to go through winter workouts at Ohio State went a long way for the fifth-year senior, who was a summer enrollee in 2025 after transferring to Ohio State in the now-defunct spring portal window, and he showed plenty of pass-rush acumen, quickness and power during March and April practices, giving him a real chance to be OSU\u2019s No. 2 defensive end \u2013 even if Ohio State defensive line coach Larry Johnson still wants to see him prove it in game action this fall.\n<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI think he’s done a 360 so far, but we haven’t played a game yet,\u201d Johnson said this spring. \u201cI think I like where he’s at. He’s much better, he’s more flexible right now, where we’d like him to be. And again, he’s a transition guy coming from the University of North Carolina and trying to play this way, and how do we do it, it’s different. It really is, and I think he embraced it. Never had a dull moment, never fought away from it, not even shied away from what we’re doing. Now, it’s his moment, his time.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\tQua Russaw<\/p>\n
\n\tThis year\u2019s transfer addition at defensive end also had an impressive spring. Russaw, a fourth-year Alabama transplant, drew praise throughout the spring from the likes of Johnson and Jackson for the power, explosiveness and versatility he demonstrated in practice.\n<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI think he’s very physically strong,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cHe\u2019s strong at the point of attack with his hands and body, which is amazing, a guy 245 can set the edge the way he does. And he brings great speed to the table. So he can do a lot of things for us. He can play end, he can play what we call the \u2018Buck\u2019 position, do some things out of there. But I think the thing that jumps off the videotape is how hard he plays, and he really has physical strength.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\tAt only 6-foot-2, Russaw is smaller than the typical defensive end, and he played primarily as a standup outside linebacker at Alabama. But his performance this spring showed he is capable of being impactful as both a pass rusher and run stopper as a hand-in-the-dirt defensive end. Preseason might bring more clarity on how exactly Ohio State will use him, as he could also be used as a hybrid linebacker, but he appears more likely than not to see regular playing time for the Buckeyes this fall based on how he performed in his first 15 practices as a Buckeye.\n<\/p>\n
\tTwo Lingering Questions<\/p>\n
\t1. Will someone other than Jackson emerge as a consistent pass-rusher?<\/p>\n
\n\tWith Caden Curry now in the NFL, Jackson is the only defensive end on Ohio State\u2019s roster who had more than one sack at the collegiate level last season.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tAtkinson\u2019s performance this spring and history at UNC, where he had 7.5 sacks in 2024, are reasons for optimism that he can give the Buckeyes more as a pass rusher than he did last season. Russaw also flashed the potential to be a disruptive pass rusher this spring even though he had just two sacks in three years at Alabama. Zion Grady, Khary Wilder and Epi Sitanilei are young players to watch at the position \u2013 particularly Grady, who missed time with an injury this spring but flashed as one of Ohio State\u2019s top backup defensive ends last season \u2013 but all of them are unproven.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tCurry led the Buckeyes with 11 sacks last season, so it\u2019s crucial that at least one of those defensive ends emerges as someone who can consistently get after the quarterback. Even with promising signs this spring, it\u2019s uncertain exactly who will be that guy when the games begin this fall.\n<\/p>\n
\t2. How many defensive ends will play regularly?<\/p>\n
\n\tJohnson always says he wants to have a deep rotation on the defensive line, but he\u2019s relied primarily on his top two defensive ends for each of the last three seasons: Curry and Jackson in 2025, Jack Sawyer and JT Tuimoloau for the previous two years. So while more frequent rotation this season seems likely with only one clear-cut starter in Jackson, that\u2019s far from guaranteed.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tEven if multiple players rotate regularly opposite Jackson, there\u2019s the question of whether that means three defensive ends seeing consistent playing time or more than that. That could depend on how much of a move Grady makes in preseason camp and whether both Atkinson and Russaw build on their strong springs come August to prove they belong in the rotation.\n<\/p>\n
\tProjected Depth Chart<\/p>\n
\tDefensive End<\/p>\n
\n\t1. Kenyatta Jackson Jr.
2. Zion Grady
3. Khary Wilder
4. Darryus McKinley\n<\/p>\n
\tDefensive End<\/p>\n
\n\t1. Beau Atkinson
2. Qua Russaw
3. Epi Sitanilei
4. Dre Quinn\n<\/p>\n
\n\tAtkinson started the spring game opposite Jackson and positioned himself as a frontrunner to start with his strong spring, but that competition is far from settled entering the summer. Grady would have been my pick to start entering spring, and he could still ultimately emerge as Ohio State\u2019s second-best defensive end this season. Russaw also made him a factor in the competition to start this spring, so those three defensive ends could still end up in any order from No. 2 to No. 4 on the depth chart.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tSitanilei and Wilder also flashed this spring and could work their way into the rotation \u2013 particularly Wilder, who finished just outside the top 50 overall prospects in the 2026 recruiting class and looked the part of a future Buckeye starter in his first spring at Ohio State. Quinn and McKinley round out the roster of scholarship defensive ends, but both of them are likely to redshirt as freshmen.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\tPost-Spring Outlook<\/p>\n
\n\tOhio State\u2019s outlook at defensive end starts with Jackson realizing his full potential in his final season as a Buckeye and becoming a consistently disruptive force off the edge. Based on what we saw from Jackson this spring, that looks like a standard he\u2019s ready to meet.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tBeyond Jackson, Ohio State doesn\u2019t have any sure-fire stars at the position. But Atkinson and Russaw did what they needed to do this spring to generate belief that they can lead Ohio State\u2019s defensive end unit alongside Jackson as upperclassmen, while Grady is another potential breakout star on the edge and Sitanilei and Wilder shouldn\u2019t be overlooked as possible young contributors at the position.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tOhio State shouldn\u2019t be bad at defensive end this season, but there\u2019s a lot that needs to come together for the Buckeyes to be elite on the edge. Where they ultimately fall on the spectrum between good and great and whether they can give Ohio State an effective outside pass-rush will go a long way toward determining whether the Buckeyes have one of the nation\u2019s top defenses once again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Ohio State\u2019s first 15 practices of the year in the books, we now have a better idea…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-644837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644837","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=644837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}