Ohio State defensive star earns flowers from key College Football Playoff rival at 2025 NFL Combine
The Ohio State Buckeyes continue to be a hot topic at the 2025 NFL Combine, and a good bit of the noise is coming from outside of the program. On Thursday, the best tight ends in the 2025 NFL Draft class hit the podium to answer questions.
Recent foes aren't always willing to be so kind to a team that beat them in the College Football Playoff, but Texas' Gunnar Helm was willing to pull the curtain back on Ohio State. Helm was highly complimentary of the unit as a whole and safeties Caleb Downs and Lathan Ransom.
"First off, Ohio State's one of the best defenses I've ever played. Best players, best scheme, best team. Obviously, having those guys on the back end [Downs and Ransom] help get everybody organized and lined up...What Lathan can do, obviously in the run game, come up and fill, that stuck out to me when we were preparing for them. He wasn't afraid to hit anybody.
It's the same for Caleb Downs. We tried our best to prepare for that but in the end, I think we got a little out schemed and did what we could. But really a heck of a player in the back-end."
Downs and Ransom didn't grade their best against Texas by PFF, but Helm did properly cite their run defense as being a factor. They combined for five run stops and were constantly rotating around to confuse Texas' offense as well as they could.
Downs will enter 2026 as a top NFL Draft prospect, while Ransom is expecting to hear his name called within the first 125 picks or so.