Ohio State’s first practices of 2026 are one week away.
After a two-month layoff following the Buckeyes’ College Football Playoff quarterfinal loss to Miami, a new-look Ohio State team will take the field for 15 practices this spring, starting next Tuesday, March 10. The Buckeyes have aspirations of competing for a national championship, but there are plenty of questions they need to answer this spring as they replace more than half of their scholarship roster from last season.
With that in mind, we’re taking a position-by-position look at how Ohio State’s roster has changed since last season, the biggest questions and position battles entering spring practice and the overall outlook for each position group ahead of next week’s start of spring. After starting with a look at the wide receivers on Monday, we’re moving to the other side of the ball for a pre-spring look at Ohio State’s defensive ends, where an intriguing but unproven group of Buckeyes will be competing to earn spots in the rotation with Kenyatta Jackson Jr. this season.
Who’s Back
Kenyatta Jackson Jr. (Starter in 2025), Zion Grady (Second-String in 2025), Beau Atkinson (Second-String in 2025), Epi Sitanilei (Redshirt in 2025)
Keeping Jackson in Columbus for his fifth-year senior season was Ohio State’s biggest retention win among its potential NFL draft entrants. While Jackson likely would have been a middle-round draft pick after a strong second half of the 2025 season, he returns to the Buckeyes as the leader of their 2026 defensive line and projects to be one of the Big Ten’s best defensive ends this fall.
Grady and Atkinson are top candidates to compete to start opposite Jackson after serving as Ohio State’s top backup defensive ends last season – particularly Grady, who surpassed Atkinson in the rotation by the end of 2025 and flashed the pass-rushing potential to be a future star of Ohio State’s defensive line.
Sitanilei played just 17 snaps as a freshman before redshirting, but could be an under-the-radar edge defender to watch this spring. He flashed in preseason camp last year and has the skill set to play as both a hybrid outside linebacker and as a hand-in-the-dirt defensive end.
Who’s New
Qua Russaw (Transfer), Khary Wilder (Freshman), Dre Quinn (Freshman), Darryus McKinley (Freshman)
Russaw, Ohio State’s lone transfer addition at defensive end this offseason, joins the Buckeyes after recording 50 tackles with 3.5 tackles for loss, two sacks, two interceptions and a forced fumble over the past two years at Alabama. The No. 33 overall prospect in the 2023 recruiting class, Russaw comes to Ohio State with plenty to prove after his playing time fluctuated in Tuscaloosa, but he’s a versatile player who could line up at both defensive end and linebacker for the Buckeyes.
Alabama transfer Qua Russaw, a redshirt junior, will look to make an immediate impact for the Buckeyes in 2026. (Photo: Jeff Hanisch – Imagn Images)
Ohio State’s freshman defensive end class is headlined by Wilder, the No. 51 overall prospect in the 2026 class. A highly productive high school player who made 91 tackles, 20 tackles for loss and 10 sacks in his senior season at Junipero Serra High School (Gardena, California), Wilder has the skill set and size (6-4, 265) to contend for immediate playing time as a Buckeye.
Quinn and McKinley are more likely to be developmental prospects, but both of them will also have a chance to showcase their skills this spring as midyear enrollees.
Who’s Gone
Caden Curry (Senior), C.J. Hicks (Transfer), Dominic Kirks (Transfer), Logan George (Transfer), Joshua Mickens (Transfer)
Ohio State is tasked with replacing its most productive defensive end from last season in Curry, who led the Buckeyes with 16.5 tackles for loss and 11 sacks in 2025.
While Ohio State lost some veteran depth with four transfer departures at defensive end, none of them played more than 50 snaps in 2025. Hicks, the No. 7 overall prospect in the 2022 recruiting class, would have been a player to watch this spring if he stayed at Ohio State after moving from linebacker to defensive end last year, but he transferred to USF to play his final season of college football for former Ohio State offensive coordinator Brian Hartline.
The Big Question
Will one or more consistent pass-rushers emerge on the edge?
Jackson is the clear-cut top candidate to lead Ohio State’s pass rush in 2026, but he still has only 9.5 career sacks in four seasons. But that’s partially because of how he’s been used – he didn’t play a major role until last season, when he recorded 6.5 sacks, and he wasn’t the primary pass-rusher in 2025 with Curry on the other side. His 45 quarterback pressures last season (per Pro Football Focus) showed he’s capable of being a top pass-rusher, but he could face more double-teams from opposing offensive lines now that Curry and All-American defensive tackle Kayden McDonald are gone.
As such, Ohio State needs at least one more pass-rusher to emerge on the edge this spring. Grady projects as a leading candidate, but that’s based on potential rather than proven production after he recorded just one sack in 109 snaps last year. Russaw also had just one sack last season, so he needs to take a big step in his development to become a starting-caliber edge rusher for the Buckeyes. Atkinson didn’t make much impact last season after transferring in from North Carolina, but he didn’t have the benefit of going through spring practices last year, and has shown he can be an impactful pass-rusher with 7.5 sacks for the Tar Heels in 2024.
Beau Atkinson had just 11 tackles with 2.5 tackles for loss and one sack in 2025, but was more productive in his previous years at North Carolina.
Ohio State has enough defensive ends to have a deeper rotation than it had last season, when Curry and Jackson played the vast majority of meaningful snaps, if it wants to. But someone needs to emerge as a player the Buckeyes can rely on opposite Jackson in high-leverage situations, and the process of identifying that player – or players – begins this spring.
Battle to Watch
Zion Grady vs. Qua Russaw vs. Beau Atkinson
With Jackson being the only proven defensive end on the roster, there will be an open competition this spring for the starting job opposite him. Grady, Russaw and Atkinson are likely to be the main players in that competition.
Atkinson has the most experience and past production of the three, but Grady played more snaps than Atkinson in the final six games of last season, which could make him the favorite to start opposite Jackson entering spring. Russaw is the wild card in the competition; he was the most highly touted recruit of any edge defender on the roster, but he was a role player at Alabama, and he’s built more like a linebacker than a true defensive end at 6-foot-2 and 243 pounds.
Wilder and Sitanilei also have the potential to factor into the competition at defensive end, especially if Larry Johnson decides to deploy a deeper rotation in 2026. But Grady, Atkinson and Russaw are likely to see most of the first-team reps along with Jackson as spring begins.
Overall Pre-Spring Outlook
The Buckeyes have one defensive end they know they can count on in Jackson, and they appear to have plenty of depth behind him. If some combination of Grady, Russaw, Atkinson, Wilder and Sitanilei can take the next step this spring, the Buckeyes should have a quality group of defensive ends for 2026.
How many true impact players Ohio State will have on the edge, however, remains uncertain. And while it’s tempting to project that the Buckeyes will deploy more of a rotation on the edge this season, the same assumptions were made last year only for Jackson and Curry to play nearly all of the meaningful snaps.
If the Buckeyes are to have one of the nation’s elite defenses once again in 2026, it all starts with having a pass rush that can put pressure on opposing quarterbacks. That all starts with Jackson establishing himself as a true No. 1 defensive end, but the Buckeyes also need a couple of their other defensive ends to break out around him – a process that will start this spring.
