Teams passing on Seth McLaughlin costs Ohio State a share of the NFL Draft record

The best center in college football in 2024 and a two-time national champion went unselected in the 2025 NFL Draft.

Ohio State’s Seth McLaughlin may be coming off an injury, but at the conclusion of this year’s NFL Draft, he became the first Rimington Trophy-winning center to go undrafted in more than a decade, dating back to Auburn’s Reese Dismukes, who won the award in 2014 and then was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Pittsburgh Steelers after not being selected.

By first-team All-Big Ten selection McLaughlin sliding out of the draft, Ohio State had 14 players selected in this year’s event. That ties a school record, but falls one shy of Georgia’s record of 15 players selected in a single draft. While Gee Scott Jr., and Josh Fryar also could have been drafted, both always seemed more likely to slide out of the draft than McLaughlin.

It’s understandable if teams don’t want to take chances with players coming off an injury, but Josh Simmons remained a first-round pick despite being injured his senior season with a torn patellar tendon. Later rounds offer good opportunities to take chances on players who may be coming off an injury or have some other risk factor.

Dating back to Dismukes, only a couple of Rimington Trophy-winning centers had been selected after the third round. That includes former Buckeyes Pat Elflein and Billy Price, who were chosen in the third round in 2017 and first round in 2018, respectively.

Aside from Elflein and Price, other Buckeye centers have had productive NFL careers, including Nick Mangold and Michael Brewster. With a decent track record of producing talent at the position, that — coupled with McLaughlin’s performance last season — should have been enough for a team to spend a draft selection on the Tennessee native. He was the top unselected player on the ESPN draft board when the event concluded.

It seems strange to see someone who excelled in 2024 as much as McLaughlin did get passed on by every NFL team. McLaughlin has since signed with the Cincinnati Bengals as an undrafted free agent, and seemingly should have interest from other teams around the league if things don’t work out in Cincy. By not being drafted, it at least gave McLaughlin some flexibility to find a team where he felt he could compete for a roster spot.

After finishing the 2024 season as a consensus All-American and winning the Rimington Trophy as the nation’s best center, McLaughlin has a chance to catch on and have a productive NFL career. What is a shame is that he didn’t get to live that dream of getting that call on draft day to cap a stellar college playing career.

Ohio State fans will remember McLaughlin’s contributions to the 2024 season. After transferring from Alabama to Ohio State in January of last year, the veteran became the leader of the Buckeye offensive line over the course of last season, before suffering a torn Achilles tendon in practice. That kept him from being able to get revenge on Michigan for the 2024 Rose Bowl loss that Alabama sustained.