Arvell Reese played well enough at Ohio State last season that he’s about to be one of the first players selected in the 2026 NFL draft, yet he still might only be scratching the surface of his potential.
Entering Thursday night’s first round of the draft, Reese is widely projected to be the second or third overall pick. At worst, Reese should be the fourth or fifth pick. That comes after only one season as a starter for Ohio State, but an excellent one at that, as he earned consensus All-American honors after recording 69 total tackles, 10 tackles for loss and 6.5 sacks.
While Reese played primarily as a linebacker at Ohio State, he’s expected to play primarily as an edge rusher in the NFL. He showed plenty of ability to rush off the edge at Ohio State last season, lining up on the edge for about half of his snaps and recording 27 total quarterback pressures, according to Pro Football Focus. But Reese says he’s never trained specifically to be an edge rusher until the last few months.
Reese made waves earlier this month in an interview with ESPN’s Benjamin Solak, in which he said he rarely practiced pass-rush moves at Ohio State.
I was watching film with Arvell Reese and then he told me he never spent time at Ohio State working on pass rush and pretty much was making up all his moves on instinct alone. pic.twitter.com/bd4DHu967E
— Benjamin Solak (@BenjaminSolak) April 9, 2026
He doubled down on that when talking to reporters in Pittsburgh before the NFL draft on Wednesday, saying that “95%” of his practice time at OSU was focused on playing inside linebacker rather than rushing off the edge.
“I didn't really know exactly how to do certain stuff. When I did it, it was just me doing it,” Reese said. “I think just recently I'm tapping into the feet work, and you got to show stuff to make an O-lineman react to certain stuff. So I’ve been just now getting into that.”
Ohio State’s pro day might have served as fuel for Reese to open up about his lack of pass-rush training at Ohio State. After working out as a linebacker at the NFL Scouting Combine, Reese worked out as a defensive end at Ohio State’s pro day, and his technique during pass-rush drills – particularly his bend – drew critiques on social media.
ARVELL REESE pic.twitter.com/Ob06gjEWx3
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) March 25, 2026
Rueben Bain. Arvell Reese.
— Ryan Fowler (@_RyanFowler_) March 25, 2026
Same drill. pic.twitter.com/5ZOx1ZdWXG
Reese has already shown he’s a better pass-rusher than that clip might suggest, most importantly with his actual game play at Ohio State, but also in clips posted to social media by pass-rush coach Brandon Jordan.
Arvell Reese Rushing and Bending @arvxll pic.twitter.com/fSyJyPPzwK
— Coach Brandon Jordan (@CoachBTJordan) March 31, 2026
That said, Reese thinks the work he’s put in during the pre-draft process and will continue to put in once he gets drafted will enable him to take his pass-rushing game to another level in the NFL.
“I think at the next level, I'm going to show them,” Reese said. “I think my technique and what I'm doing, I think it's going to be way better than what it was. A lot of the stuff I was doing was just me being able to do it just naturally, God-gifted. But at the next level, it's going to be tightened up and it's going to be elite.”
Ohio State defensive line coach Larry Johnson said last week that Reese did spend some time doing pass-rush drills with the defensive linemen in practice, particularly during the offseason. Reese even briefly made the switch to defensive end during his freshman year at Ohio State, though he was moved back to linebacker after a few weeks. But Johnson didn’t dispute Reese’s notion that some of what he was doing as a pass-rusher was based purely on instincts.
“That's a little bit true, yeah, because he's fast. When you're fast, you can do what you want to do,” Johnson said. “So he's got a great skill set. He can bend, he can run, he's powerful. And he's easy to coach.”
“A lot of the stuff I was doing was just me being able to do it just naturally, God-gifted. But at the next level, it's going to be tightened up and it's going to be elite.”– Arvell Reese on how he’s developing as a pass-rusher
It didn’t take long for Reese to realize how naturally talented he was when he arrived at Ohio State. Reese says he didn’t think much about playing in the NFL during his years at Glenville High School, particularly early in his high school career, as he was just playing football for the love of the game. But while Reese wasn’t necessarily expected to be a future first-round pick when he arrived at Ohio State as the No. 212 overall prospect in the 2023 recruiting class, he said he realized he could be an NFL player within his first couple of practices at Ohio State based on his ability to compete with the rest of the Buckeyes.
“Just from how fast I was just playing and just the effort I was playing with kind of gave me that idea, like, ‘OK, I can do it on this level,’” Reese said.
That said, Reese credits his coaches at Ohio State with molding him into the player he is today. While he might not have spent as much time working on pass-rush moves as a Buckeye as he would have liked, he says just about everything else in his game came from what he learned from James Laurinaitis, Matt Patricia, Johnson and the rest of his coaches in Columbus.
“I think everything I'm pretty much doing, other than the effort standpoint, is from what they taught me,” Reese said.
Reese enters the NFL draft confident he's one of the best players in this year’s draft, and if the New York Jets share that confidence, he could be the No. 2 overall pick on Thursday night. But Reese says he isn’t stressing over when he’ll hear his name called on Thursday, choosing to keep his focus on preparing to be ready for whatever team drafts him.
“That's nothing that I can control, so I don't really think about that,” Reese said. “I only think about stuff that I can control.”
The 2026 NFL draft begins at 8 p.m. Thursday and will be televised by ABC, ESPN and NFL Network. Stay tuned with Eleven Warriors for coverage of every Ohio State draft pick as it happens.
