Darron Lee is the human highlight reel whose name keeps appearing on preseason All-American lists. Raekwon McMillan is the five-star recruit who has already been dubbed the next great Ohio State linebacker. If you’re looking for star power, Ohio State has two high-profile candidates in its linebacking corps.
But there’s another member of the Buckeyes’ three-man group who often gets overlooked. One who’s not flashy, but led the national champions in tackles last season with 124.
Joshua Perry is set to enter his senior season at Ohio State, where he’ll be starting at one of the outside linebacking spots alongside McMillan and Lee. Together, they make up one of the strongest linebacking corps in all of college football.
Perry went the more traditional route to becoming one of the Buckeyes’ most consistent players. He, like Lee, wasn’t necessarily a highly-touted recruit, but Lee’s rise was remarkably fast while Perry’s was gradual. McMillan, meanwhile, had high expectations from the moment he stepped on campus.
Because of that journey, and his ability to lead on and off the field, Perry is a shoe-in to be one of Ohio State’s captains for the 2015 season. Buckeyes head coach Urban Meyer knows how important he is, too.
“He’s a guy that was committed to Ohio State before we got there, a guy that was not very highly recruited, but you could tell right away a really talented guy,” Meyer said in Dallas during the week of the College Football Playoff national championship. “He comes from one of the best families I’ve ever been around and he just started to grind and work.”
Perry’s 124 stops in 2014 were 32 more than Ohio State’s second-leading tackler, safety Vonn Bell. He’s a steadying force in the middle of a much-improved Buckeyes’ defense and while Lee and McMillan generate a lot of the hype, Perry provides the consistency needed for the group to be so successful.
“We can be really good this year,” Perry said back during spring practice. “We have a lot of talented guys, we have a lot of guys who care about each other and a lot of guys who will play hard.”
Lee, Joey Bosa and Vonn Bell, among others grab the headlines of the Ohio State defense. Perry isn’t necessarily forgotten in that group, but perhaps his talent level and on-field importance gets lost in the shuffle at times.
But make no mistake about it, if there’s one guy Meyer is picking as the leader of his defense in 2015, it’s the 6-foot-4, 254-pound Perry.
“We just need to find something — especially a group of leaders — older guys on the team need to find what it is that’s gonna help us improve as a team,” Perry said this spring. “That’s gonna be a tough task, we already know that, but at the same time that’s what you look forward to as a leader. You want those situations where it’s not necessarily easy because that’ll show what you really have.”
In Perry, the Buckeyes already have one of those leaders. And he’s as consistent on the field as he is off it.
