Nobody saw this coming. Not at this scale.
When Matt Patricia arrived in Columbus in February 2025, the questions were reasonable and predictable: Could an NFL-bred coordinator adapt to the college game? Could he replace eight starters from the nation’s top defense? Would his system translate without the practice time and veteran roster he had in New England?
Fourteen months later, those questions have their answer. Arvell Reese went fifth overall to the New York Giants. Sonny Styles went seventh to the Washington Commanders. Caleb Downs went eleventh to the Dallas Cowboys. Kayden McDonald followed in the second round to the Houston Texans. Three of those four were not projected first-round picks entering the 2025 season.
The common thread connecting all of them is Matt Patricia.
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A Draft Class That Rewrote the Record Books
Ohio State has always sent defenders to the NFL. The program leads all schools in first-round picks and has built its recruiting identity around the pipeline it provides to professional football. But what happened in Pittsburgh last week sits in a different category entirely.
Reese, Styles, and Downs became the first trio of defenders from the same school selected in the top 11 picks of the same NFL Draft. Reese and Styles are the first pair of linebackers from the same program taken in the top ten of the same draft in NFL history. Four Ohio State players in the top 11 picks overall is a mark that hadn’t been reached since Michigan State in 1967.
None of those records exist without Patricia’s coaching.
How Patricia’s System Elevated Each Player
Only Caleb Downs entered the 2025 season as a projected first-round pick. Patricia inherited him as the centerpiece and built outward from there, which is exactly what he said he’d do when he arrived.
Reese’s rise is the most striking individual story. He entered 2025 as a promising inside linebacker without first-round projection. Patricia identified his athleticism and explosive power as edge tools, deployed him in a hybrid role that let him attack from multiple alignments, and Reese finished the season with 69 tackles, 10 tackles for loss, and 6.5 sacks. At the NFL Combine, he told reporters he considers himself an edge and outside linebacker. The Giants agreed, taking him fifth overall.
Styles had a clearer path but still benefited from Patricia’s conceptual teaching. Having made the transition from safety to linebacker in 2024, Styles needed a coordinator who could give him the full defensive picture rather than a narrow positional assignment. Patricia’s system does exactly that. Styles went into NFL draft rooms able to explain every position on the defense, a distinction that separated him in interviews and pushed his stock into the top ten.
McDonald arrived with limited starting experience and left as the Big Ten’s Defensive Lineman of the Year, the first unanimous All-American at defensive tackle from Ohio State in 55 years. Patricia’s scheme gave him the interior freedom to be disruptive without overloading him with gap assignments.
The Teaching Behind the Numbers
Patricia brought more than a scheme to Columbus. He brought a way of explaining the game that most college defenders have never encountered.
Former Ohio State linebacker Bobby Carpenter, who played under Patricia with the Patriots, recalled a film session where Patricia explained their third-down defense against Peyton Manning in a way the seven-year veteran had never heard before. Patricia called it “spinning the dial.” He gave players the why behind every call, not just the assignment itself. Carpenter said he’d never had a coach explain it that way before.
Arvell Reese put it plainly at the NFL Combine: with Patricia’s defense, he could explain all 11 positions with 80 to 90 percent of the calls. NFL teams noticed. That football intelligence, installed in one season, separated Ohio State’s defenders in draft interviews from players at programs running comparable schemes.
What It Means Going Forward
For Buckeye Nation, the 2026 draft class is validation. For the recruiting trail, it’s a pitch that sells itself.
Matt Patricia walks into living rooms across Ohio and the country with a resume that needs no translation. He developed four defenders into top-36 picks in a single season, three of them into first-round picks who weren’t projected there when the year began. That production, more than any scheme diagram or press conference quote, is what elite defensive prospects are looking at when they decide where to play college football.
Patricia is back for 2026 on a new contract, with a rebuilt defense and another group of developing players ready to prove themselves. If his first year is any indication, Buckeye Nation hasn’t seen the last of this kind of April.
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