With this much roster turnover, most of the attention this offseason has gone to who Ohio State lost. It is worth spending just as much time on who is stepping up to replace them.
Eddrick Houston is the name at the top of that list. The sophomore made the unusual move from the edge to the interior during his freshman season and quickly turned it into an advantage, finishing 2025 with 21 tackles, four tackles for loss, and three sacks in 13 games after playing 12 games as a true freshman the year before. With Kayden McDonald now gone to the NFL, Houston is the closest thing Ohio State has to a returning anchor up front, and there is a real case that his best football is still ahead of him.
Jermaine Mathews Jr. deserves a mention here too, even though he is a returning starter rather than a newcomer. He closed 2025 with 26 tackles, two interceptions, one sack, and a forced fumble across 14 games, and former Ohio State cornerback Jeff Okudah singled him out this summer as one of two Buckeyes he expects to take a real step forward in 2026. That kind of endorsement from a player who knows exactly what it takes to succeed at the position in Columbus carries weight, especially for a cornerback room that now has to replace Davison Igbinosun’s experience without much margin for a slow start.
The Interior’s New Face
Houston was viewed as an edge rusher coming out of high school before Ohio State added weight and moved him inside, a bet that paid off almost immediately. He now projects as more of a disruptive three technique than a true nose tackle, which fits well alongside the transfer additions Larry Johnson brought in this offseason to round out the interior rotation. If Houston takes the step several analysts expect, he gives Matt Patricia a legitimate returning building block at the position that lost the most production from last year’s defense.
Spring Game Flashes
A handful of defenders also made a case for themselves during Ohio State’s spring game in April. Defensive back Atkinson stood out, picking off a tipped pass off a deflection from Will Smith Jr. to go along with a sack, the kind of instinctive, ball-hawking play that Patricia’s system tends to reward even in a limited spring setting. A pass rusher named Jackson also picked up a pair of sacks in the scrimmage, though as always with spring game stat lines, the quarterback touch rule that limits full contact on passers means those numbers come with a real grain of salt.
None of these performances guarantee a starting job in September. Spring games are closer to organized practice than real football, and the players who flash in April don’t always hold up once fall camp intensity and live tackling return. What the spring game does provide is an early signal of who the coaching staff trusted with meaningful reps at a time when the two-deep is still very much unsettled.
A Deeper Bench Than the Headlines Suggest
It is easy to look at a list of seven departed starters and assume Ohio State’s defense is starting from nothing, but that overstates the situation. Players like Kenyatta Jackson Jr. and Jermaine Mathews Jr. already have real starting experience, and the transfer additions Larry Johnson and Tim Walton brought in this offseason mean the two-deep isn’t being filled entirely with unproven true freshmen. Devin Sanchez, a former five-star cornerback signee who has continued developing behind the returning starters, gives the room another proven high school pedigree to lean on if injuries or growing pains hit early. Houston and the spring game standouts are simply the names with the most obvious room to grow into larger roles, not the entirety of the plan.
Why These Names Matter Now
Ohio State’s defense has now lost 15 starters to the NFL Draft across the last two offseasons, an extraordinary amount of proven production to replace in back to back years. That makes players like Houston, who already has a season of quality tape, and the younger names who flashed in the spring game that much more important heading into fall camp. Patricia doesn’t need every one of them to become an All-American. He needs enough of them to be ready by September that the defense doesn’t have to lean entirely on the transfer additions to hold the line.
The margin for error is thinner this year than it was a year ago, if only because opposing coordinators now have a full season of film to study. Houston and the rest of this developing group will have every chance to prove that margin doesn’t matter as much as it looks like it should on paper, especially with Matt Patricia’s staff putting a full offseason of installation behind them before the lights come on against Ball State.
