Former Buckeyes Believe Sonny Styles Ready For Special Season

The 2024 season was a learning experience for Sonny Styles, which has been the story of his career for the Buckeye linebacker.

As a high schooler, Styles was a five-star safety prospect who decided to graduate early and bypass his senior year. He arrived at Ohio State a year ahead of schedule and without a true position of his own.

Listed at 6-foot-4 and 222 pounds as a true freshman in 2022, Styles worked as both a safety in OSU’s defense and also a quasi-Sam linebacker tasked with holding the edge of the line of scrimmage or covering a tight end on passing plays. He played in 12 games that year and finished with nine tackles.

As a sophomore, Styles made the interesting move from safety to nickel, which put him in the slot in pass coverage and also allowed him to get closer to the line of scrimmage. He moved to strong safety later in the season due to an injury to starter Lathan Ransom. Styles finished the year with 53 tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss, and 2.0 sacks.

Last season as a junior for the Buckeyes, Sonny Styles was again at a new position. He won the job as the Will linebacker, but started the season opener at middle linebacker because of an injury to starter Cody Simon.

The season was a work in progress for Styles, but by the end of the year, that progress was showing up in the biggest games. He finished with 100 tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss, and 6.0 sacks. Two of his sacks and four of his tackles for loss came in the Buckeyes’ final two games of their national-title winning season.

It wasn’t always perfect for Styles last year, but it got better every week, which is why expectations are pretty high for what he could do in his final season with the Buckeyes.

Speaking at this weekend’s NFL Combine, some of his former defensive teammates were asked about Styles, and they all had their thoughts. One of those players was defensive end Jack Sawyer, who grew up with Sonny’s older brother Lorenzo. He’s known Sonny “since he was just a little guy.”

“Seeing him now, the freak of an athlete that he is and the type of man he is, I’m just happy for him,” Sawyer said. “I think going into year two, he’s going to take a huge jump playing linebacker. He had a great year this year, obviously. It was his first year playing it. He’s a super-smart kid, super-competitive kid, tough kid. Obviously, he’s got the traits of a top-ten pick, so I’m excited to see what he does this season in his second year. I know it’s going to be something great.”

Styles will be the most-experienced linebacker on the team this season. Middle linebacker Cody Simon is off to the NFL, so somebody new will need to step up in the position next to Styles. It is expected that junior Arvell Reese will handle that job, but he’ll have help right next to him just like Simon did.

“He’s helped me become a better leader,” Simon said this weekend. “Through this past year, he’s helped me become a better linebacker. He’s going to have a great season just because of how curious and how prepared he is as a linebacker. It’s never easy to change your position, especially safety to linebacker. You have to worry about a lot more things in the run game and helping out in the pass game. So for him to make that change and then excel at that position, just like he did at the end of the year, I think it was impressive. And it speaks a lot about his character.”

The fact that Styles was able to not just handle his position, but then also moonlight as a middle linebacker while wearing the in-helmet communication and making the calls, is a pretty good indication of how much he understood the defense. With more time on the field, the experience grew and the timing got better. By the end of the season, he was no longer a safety playing linebacker. He was a Silver Bullet.

“For a guy who started off as safety moving to linebacker, I mean, it was a natural adjustment for him,” explained defensive tackle Ty Hamilton. “He made no complaints. None of that. He worked as hard as he could every single day and learned the playbook. You can see the leadership on the field when he’s out there calling the plays with confidence and being out there supporting his team, man. His team rallied behind him.”

The 2025 Ohio State defense will also have to rally around Styles because he’ll be one of just three starters returning from last year’s team. Safety Caleb Downs and cornerback Davison Igbinosun are back, but the front four will have new starters, and so will 60% of the secondary. The team will be looking for leaders, and they won’t have to look hard to find Styles.

The same can be said for any opposing ball carrier.

“Oh, yeah, Sonny, man, he’s a baller,” said safety Lathan Ransom. “He’s one of my closest friends. To watch the way he developed and the way he was playing that last stretch at the end of the season, man, he made a lot of plays, and I think he’s the best linebacker coming back in the country this year. To see what he’s going to do next year, man, is going to be special.”

Sonny Styles shared the nickel position in 2023 with Jordan Hancock, so Hancock maybe knows better than anybody what Styles is capable of in his final go-round with the Buckeyes.

Statistics and accolades are anybody’s guess — and Hancock certainly has his guesses, but there is one thing that does not involve any speculation.

“I’ll tell you, he’s gonna be a leader,” Hancock said, before adding, “He’s gonna have an all-American year, in my opinion. He’s gonna try to be the best linebacker in the country.”

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