Ohio State, Urban Meyer big winners of NFL Draft first round

With Joe Burrow, Chase Young and Jeffrey Okudah going 1-2-3 in the 2020 NFL Draft, they become the first former college teammates to ever accomplish this.

When you’re a college football power like the Ohio State Buckeyes, blue-chip prospects grace your program all the time. However, we’ve never seen a program have three former college teammates go 1-2-3 in an NFL Draft until now. Joe Burrow went No. 1 to the Cincinnati Bengals, Chase Young went No. 2 to the Washington Redskins and Jeffrey Okudah went No. 3 to the Detroit Lions.

Although Burrow graduated and transferred from Ohio State before becoming a legend with the LSU Tigers, he, Young and Okudah were all on the Buckeyes roster at the same time. The really cool part in this all they all starred in college at totally different position groups.

Burrow was a star quarterback at LSU, but did back up J.T. Barrett primarily while he was in Columbus. Young became the next great passer rusher out of Ohio State after the Bosa brothers. Okudah looks to be the next star defensive back to take his talents from The Horseshoe and into the NFL.

All three of these players were recruited by former Buckeyes head coach Urban Meyer to play their college ball. Even though none of them finished their college careers playing for Meyer, they all ended with College Football Playoff berths and top-three selections. Strangely, the only one of them to win a national title in college was Burrow, the guy who transferred away from Ohio State to the SEC.

There have been other blue-blood programs where we could have sworn former teammates had gone 1-2-3 before. We would have thought teams like the Alabama Crimson Tide, the Miami Hurricanes, the Oklahoma Sooners or the USC Trojans would have accomplished this feat at the peak of their powers. Nope, Ohio State was the first to pull it off.

Even if it has an unconventional look to it, Ohio State was the first program to ever do it, even if Burrow had to transfer. Congratulations to Burrow, Young and Okudah for getting drafted in the top-three. Congratulations is also due to Ohio State for landing these blue-chip prospects and Meyer for getting them to Columbus in the first place.

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