Ohio State's Arvell Reese ranked No. 1 target in 2026 NFL Draft by national analyst

There's just a few more weeks remaining in the 2025 college football regular season.

And the Ohio State Buckeyes are one of the top teams in the nation, sporting a perfect 9-0 overall record and 6-0 in Big Ten play mark while sitting No. 1 in the rankings.

This past weekend the Buckeyes dominated the Purdue Boilermakers after a slow start, cruising to a 35-10 victory on the road. While it wasn't his best game of the year defensively, linebacker Arvell Reese continued to play well.

He's now up to 55 combined tackles, 10 for a loss and 6.5 sacks on the season to go along with two pass deflections. No matter where he's at on the field as a linebacker or pass rusher, Reese is continuing to jolt his draft stock forward.

On Tuesday, Nov. 11, national analyst, Dane Brugler, spotlighted the talented linebacker as the No. 1-ranked prospect in The Athletic's Top 50 board.

He backed up the belief that Reese's size allows him to play a number of spots on the defense.

"Want to play him as a full-time edge rusher? Reese can do that," Brugler's article reads. "Prefer to keep him off the ball? He can do that, too. At 6 feet 4 and 240 pounds with long arms, Reese is just as comfortable setting the edge with violence as he is dropping in space to cover ground or using burst to capture the corner and close on the quarterback."

While there are various other prospects that could go higher than Reese, he does seem to have the most day-one-ready skillsets.

"I don’t know how realistic it is that Reese actually will be the first player (or first non-quarterback) drafted, but he is the best draft-eligible prospect I have studied in 2025," Brugler wrote.

Reese's best game of the season came against Penn State, where he bullied the opposing team's offense. He recorded 12 tackles, 2.5 for a loss and one sack en route to the 38-14 win.

If the Buckeyes can march their way to back-to-back national championships, Reese's abilities will be put on full display with a chance for him to solidify an opportunity to be a top first-rounder off the board in 2026.

Also spotlighted in Brugler's article was safety Caleb Downs who's been drawing NFL eyes since he started getting college snaps.

"The Ohio State All-American is one of the best pure football players in this draft class," wrote Brugler. "NFL coaches are going to love how he marries his athletic ability, field vision and toughness."

In his first year at Alabama, he recorded 107 tackles, 3.5 for a loss, two interceptions, four pass deflections and one fumble recovery. At Ohio State, he tacked on 125 tackles across two years, 10.5 for a loss, 0.5 sacks, four interceptions and seven pass deflections.

"Like Arvell Reese, I don’t think Downs will be drafted as highly as I have him ranked, because of positional value," Brugler wrote. "Given how the NFL has drafted safeties in recent years, we can’t even call Downs a top-10 lock."

Both Downs and Reese will next hit the field on Saturday, Nov. 15, with kickoff slated for 7:30 p.m. EST against UCLA.