Since the clock hit zero on Ohio State’s national championship victory at the end of the 2024 season, two names have been front of mind for 2025 at linebacker: Sonny Styles and Arvell Reese.
But as James Laurinaitis sees it – to borrow a quote from a small, wise green Jedi – there is another.
From his first interview of the spring three weeks ago to Thursday’s media session, Laurinaitis has lifted a third player up alongside Styles and Reese, and that player is sophomore Payton Pierce.
“Payton's awesome. Tough,” Laurinaitis said. “Just like an absolute natural. Absolute natural middle linebacker. His feel in the box and his ability to maneuver and feel blocking schemes. He's got that wrestling background, so his striking ability and the way he snags and then runs his feet on contact, like, it's just a throwback, man. I love Payton. I expect Payton to have a lot of playing time.”
The third linebacker in Ohio State’s defense has harvested a solid bounty of playing time the past two seasons, and the Loverjoy, Texas native enters his second year positioned to show fantastic flashes as the No. 3 guy.
“Just trying to be the best I can every day and compete with the guys we got in the room and just keep getting better every day,” Pierce said. “I mean, it's been a heck of a two weeks we've had. It's been real competitive and I'm having so much fun. Football is great.”
After collecting 180 tackles, 40 tackles for loss and eight sacks in his senior year with Lovejoy, Pierce suffered an early setback to his collegiate development when an ankle injury held him out of his first spring practice. But come fall, he was a major contributor to multiple Ohio State special teams units and logged 31 defensive snaps, making four tackles.
Now that he’s stringing a healthy fall and spring together, Pierce is getting in a much better flow of the Buckeyes’ defense and the linebacker position.
“It feels good,” Pierce said. “I was kind of just thrown right into it in fall camp. And I thought I did a pretty well job, just kind of getting thrown into the fire. But now after coming back this year, things click a lot easier. And I feel like this defense, everyone's clicking and I'm really studying as much as I can. I mean, I just live up here all day.”
Laurinaitis mentioned Pierce’s wrestling background for a reason. Pierce went 30-1 across two seasons for Lovejoy and won the 2022 Texas Class 5A state championship at 220 pounds. His lone loss in the following year’s state championship match that ended his career still haunts him, however.
“An absolute natural. Absolute natural middle linebacker.”– James Laurinaitis on Payton Pierce
Pierce said wrestling not only forged his physical toughness, it taught him many lessons about mental strength, too. Plus wrestling requires great explosion, balance, strength and flexibility, all of which are helpful for a linebacker.
“It's such an unforgiving sport,” Pierce said. “I won all my high school matches, won every match and lost my last one. So that just shows the mentality of it. If you ever let up – it's so easy to slip up in that sport. And I think it just shows (that) it builds a mentality in you. And it touches you differently when you grow up wrestling and stuff. So I wouldn't even say just the physical stuff, but just the mental stuff every day.”
The natural in-the-box abilities Laurinaitis observes in Pierce’s game are boosted by that wrestling background, too, aiding in block-shedding. But one doesn’t make 180 tackles in 14 high school games without elite instincts, the “feel” his coach also spoke of.
Instincts as a concept are hard to define. Do they come from rigorous film study and training or are they more innate? Pierce sees it as a mixture. But his are sharp and ready to be displayed.
“I think it could be a little bit of both,” Pierce said. “I think Arvell is a good example of someone who's kind of been taught how to do it, and he's really good at it, too. But yeah, I think I just kind of naturally had a knack for it and just from wrestling and body positioning and stuff and just playing smart.”
Now the question is how much usage Pierce will see in the Buckeyes’ defense. Through a combination of 4-3 subpackage work and injury fill-ins, Cody Simon played 373 snaps and made 57 tackles as Ohio State’s third linebacker in 2023 and Reese racked up 43 tackles in 307 snaps in the same role in 2024. Pierce is prepared to play Sam if needed, but placing him at Mike and bumping Styles or Reese outside to Sam in 4-3 looks is also on the table.
“I'll play whatever coach wants me to play,” Pierce said. “I'm just trying to learn all the positions, and that's including all the way from defensive end to corner, just to know where everyone's going. So if someone goes down in those linebacker spots, I can be ready.”
The wrinkle in those usage numbers is Ohio State’s new defensive coordinator, Matt Patricia. There are a lot of subpackages and concepts, new and old, that he’s going to experiment with over the coming months to find the best plans of attack for the new-look Silver Bullets. But Laurinaitis is confident in Patricia’s ability to involve everyone who needs to be involved, and the sense is that Pierce is someone who needs to be involved.
“When you study what Matt's done everywhere he's been, he takes – ‘OK, how many guys do we have that we can count on?’ And then, ‘What are we going to do with those guys,’” Laurinaitis said. “And so, we have a system in place when he got here of things we did really well, things that he really likes. Then, how do you add to it? And if you need to subtract somewhere, you subtract.”
Between the scheme and specializations Pierce sees in his game, he’s positioned to turn his natural ability into production this year.
“You've got Sonny, who's probably the best pass-defending linebacker I know,” Pierce said. “And then you’ve got Arvell, who's elite off the edge and can do literally everything on the field. And then I feel like I'm pretty good in the box. We’ve all got our strengths and we're just trying to make each other better. And so I think whatever happens, happens and we've got guys who are able to play anything.”
