Why low draft numbers shouldn’t worry Ohio State Football fans

The NFL Draft officially came to an end Saturday evening. It was a three-day event that changed the lives of hundreds of young men forever. Thursday night was a great night for the Ohio State football program. That was really the only night that was though.

Throughout the entire 2022 NFL Draft, the Buckeyes only had six players drafted. That’s the lowest number for the number of draftees since 2015. Ohio State football fans might be alarmed by that number and ask why those numbers were so low this season.

The answer is something that should help calm the minds of Buckeye fans. If you look deeper into why this happened, take a look at the recruiting class of 2019. That was the transition class between Urban Meyer leaving and Ryan Day taking over as head coach.

In that class, the Buckeyes only had the 7th-best recruiting class in the country, which is low compared to where they normally are. It was also a class that only saw 17 signees. Of those 17 signees, four of them ended up transferring elsewhere, one of them retired, and one is playing a different position than what he planned to play.

That class was draft-eligible for the first time in 2022. Because that class was a transition class, it wasn’t as strong. Next year’s class won’t have that issue. The recruiting has picked up in a major way since Day took over as the leader of the program, which should lead to more wins in the future.

This is a big year for Day and his staff. He made a lot of changes in response to the Buckeyes’ worst regular-season finish since 2018. He knows that the pressure is on him to be much better this season with a team that has a loaded offense.

We’re going to find out in a few months exactly what he can do.