The 2026 corner back class is loaded from top to bottom and is one of the most fascinating groups to evaluate, especially at the top. Guys like Jermod McCoy, Mansoor Delane, and Avieon Terrell have been the most popular names, with each of them making a case to be the best corner in this year’s class. A great blend of strengths and weaknesses at the top of the draft makes this year’s class incredibly unique, but in my opinion, there is one player who is simply not getting enough attention.
Davison Igbinosun, a starting corner for the Ohio State Buckeyes, has been maybe the best corner in the nation this year and is the type of player I think will be even better in the NFL. Igbinosun is one of the best coverage corners in this year’s class, and his ability to impact the game from the boundary in both man and zone is incredibly impressive. I wrote earlier this year about why Iggy is one of the most underrated players in the draft, and now I am getting out in front by making him my top corner.
Evaluating corners for the NFL can be very tricky, as college defenses are much less complex than what we see on NFL Sundays. Often, corners are forced to run very simple, repetitive coverages, making it hard for scouts to find quality reps on film in certain coverages. This is why scouts often look for athletic corners they can mold into their defensive scheme, rather than finding a corner who already has experience playing in their style of defense. Igbinosun can be just that with incredible athleticism and traits that will undoubtedly translate to the NFL.
Let’s start with the intangible traits, something that NFL teams value very highly, especially at corner, where teams want to see long arms and fluid hips. As far as size goes, Igbinosun is the perfect size for the modern NFL at 6’2/195, just tall enough to hang with bigger receivers, but not so tall that he can’t flip his hips with smaller, quicker receivers. He appears to have plenty of arm length, and he packs on just enough size that he can make big hits in space, which we saw during Ohio State’s game in the college football playoff against Miami when Igbinosun forced a big fumble with a hit on Mark Flethcher Jr. early in the game.
But this is where Iggy takes it to another level: While he is known for his incredible traits and ball skills, he is also very versatile and has proven able to play in many different defenses. Now in his four-year college career, Iggy has played for three different defensive coordinators, each of whom runs vastly different schemes. This versatility will be valuable in the NFL, where teams are constantly changing looks and coverages to match opposing offenses.
Under Pete Goulding at Ole Miss, Iggy played a lot of Cover 2 and Cover 7, where he was most often assigned to the flat to come up and make tackles or fall back to make intermediate plays on the ball. He then transferred to Ohio State, where he played for two years under Jim Knowles, known for his aggressive three-safety defenses that feature a lot of cover-three and man-blitzes. Now, he has played for former NFL head coach Matt Patricia, who runs a lot of Cover 1 and Cover 3 with extensive pre-snap movement, which is much more like the modern NFL.
All of this to say, Igbinosun has proven he can do it all at a very high level, and that he can be a fit in almost any defense in the NFL. Last year, Igbinosun would have been my second-highest graded corner behind Will Johnson. Still, after receiving some feedback from scouts, he chose to return to OSU for his senior season because of concerns about him leading the NCAA with 16 accepted penalties. But this season under Matt Patricia, Iggy cleaned things up and immediately became one of the least penalized corners in college football.
This year, it really felt like many scouts wrote Igbinosun off as a project after he struggled with penalties last year, and it has gone somewhat unnoticed how much he has improved. He can still be a little grabby in coverage, especially when someone can get his hips facing the wrong way on in-cutting routes, but when he does not grab, he does an exceptional job of recovering and getting back to the ball when it is thrown. These are skills you do not see every day from a college corner and will immediately make him an impact player in the NFL.
I have consistently ranked Iggy in my top 25, and now he will likely jump into my top 10 after reviewing the film for the 2025 season. Scouts are not high enough on Igbinosun, and I think that when you really break down his film, you will see exactly what NFL teams are looking for in boundary corners. He may give up some big plays, and I imagine we will see his penalty numbers jump again in the NFL for his first season. But the skills are undeniable, and I think that it is just a matter of time in the NFL before we see Davison Igbinosun’s name near the top of the Pro Bowl and All-Pro voting in the NFL.
