Highest rated Ohio State football players in college football video game history

Highest rated Ohio State football players in college football video game history #GoBucks

A teaser trailer dropped for the new upcoming EA Sports College Football video game and despite seeing very little gameplay and details, the anticipation is at an all-time high. At this point, gamers who have waited a decade just want the playoffs and transfer portal added and would be happy with the graphics from the past generation of consoles.

According to the trailer, we can expect a full reveal this May and the game to hit shelves this summer, but if you are like me, you are too much of a pessimist to believe it. Nonetheless, it is fun to take this opportunity to look back on some of the highest-rated Ohio State football players in this game’s history. The craziest part of this list is that a now current coach on the staff is tied as the highest Buckeye ever rated.

The last game came out in 2013 and it is a real shame we missed out on studs like Nick Bosa, Chase Young and of course C.J. Stroud, but it will be interesting to see who some of the top guys are this year.

My 7 biggest draft misses as an evaluator and the lessons learned from them

Draft Wire’s Jeff Risdon looks back at the 7 biggest misses in his draft evaluations over the last 20 years and what he learned from them

Recently I reflected upon the top-graded players at each position in my draft evaluations since 2004. That was a fun exercise.

This trip down memory lane is not so pleasant. But it’s an important one nonetheless.

Who were my biggest misses in the draft evaluation process?

Most of these are players who I expected to be very good in the NFL but didn’t pan out. There are a couple of notable prospects where I grossly underestimated their impact at the next level, too.

The point here is to learn from the misses. Why were my evaluations off? What did I think I saw that made me miss? If you’re not trying to get better and learn from your mistakes as an evaluator, you’re destined to keep missing.

Highest rated Ohio State football players in “NCAA Football” video game history

Highest rated Ohio State Buckeyes in NCAA video game history #GoBucks #NCAAFootball

The NCAA video game series has been a pillar in many households since 1998 and for some even before that during the days of “Bill Walsh College Football.” It was downright devastating when EA Sport stopped producing the game after “NCAA ’14.”

The game — or a version thereof — is scheduled to return in time for the 2023 season and I just simply can’t wait. It got me wondering who the ten highest-rated Ohio State football players were in the video game’s history. It is important to remember that no names were used for the rosters, but we can make some safe assumptions that QB No. 2 would have been Terrelle Pryor. It’s part of the reason EA Sports had to stop making the game.

Another item of note is that it is extremely hard to find any rosters before the 2004 version, but I feel I exhausted my options and found the best results. I also want to note that the first “Bill Walsh College Football” game didn’t even have Ohio State and instead had an odd copycat team named Columbus. There were no individual player ratings and therefore that game was not used. Oh, and don’t forget, NCAA games were labeled a year in advance so the 2005 version of the game is actually for the 2004 season. Got it? No, maybe — sort of?

Let’s move forward anyway with the top ten rated Ohio State football players in the history of the “NCAA Football” video game franchise.