Both Ohio State and Michigan have sent many players on to professional football. Michigan lists Ernest Hughitt, varsity 1912-1914, as it's earliest player to join the professional ranks- playing for the Buffalo All-Americans,1920-1924. Also on the 1920 Buffalo squad was Cedric Smith, varsity fullback from 1915-1917. Ohio State lists Chic Harley as its first professional player. The 1916 All-American halfback played for the Chicago Bears in1921.
The National Football League instituted its college player draft in 1936. Since then the number of first- round draft choices has become one more measure of competition between the schools. Ohio State had its first first-round choice in 1938 draft when halfback James McDonald was selected by the Philadelphia Eagles. Three years later Michigan had a pair of first-round choices: quarterback Forrest Evashevski, chosen by the Washington Redskins, and Tom Harmon, the number one overall pick of the Chicago Bears. Neither Evashevski or Harmon played for the teams that drafted them however.
| OSU | UM | |
| First-round Draft Choices | 59 | 49 |
| Overall Number 1 Choice | Tom Cousineau, 1979 Dan Wilkinson, 1994 Orlando Pace, 1997 |
Tom Harmon, 1941 Jake Long, 2008 |
| Most in One Year | 1971, 4 | 3, 1959 and 2001 |
 Jim McDonald, 1938  Nate Clements, 2001  Ryan Pickett, 2001 |
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 Forrest Evashevski, 1941  David Terrell, 2001  Steve Hutchinson, 2001 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||