Sonny Styles remembers what it was like to have strong leadership around him at Ohio State early in his collegiate career.
When a particular practice didn’t go as he hoped, he’d remember Jack Sawyer or Kamryn Babb putting an arm around him and checking on him. He appreciated the gesture, so with his fourth season approaching at Ohio State, he’s making it a point to do what others did for him and mentoring younger players in OSU’s linebacker room and on defense.
“I know that’s what you need sometimes,” Styles said Thursday about the younger players having a friendly ear to listen to. “I think the guys that came before me and showed me how to lead are helping me lead now. You’ve got so many great people on this team, there’s a lot of leaders when you look around.”
Styles likes to lead both by example and vocally, which his teammates have picked up on. Arvell Reese may be tasked with replacing Cody Simon at Mike linebacker this season and benefits from Styles’ presence in the defensive huddle, as the pair communicate often pre-snap regarding what they see when facing OSU’s offense in spring practice.
“I think Sonny is a great leader,” linebacker Arvell Reese said. “I feel like he’s got the voice. You can be thinking about something and then Sonny just can lay it out for the whole team. Sonny is definitely a great leader before anything.”
The 6-foot-4, 235-pound Styles hasn’t taken the most linear path to success in Columbus. The Pickerington resident and five-star recruit reclassified from the 2023 recruiting class to the 2022 cycle so he could arrive at OSU a year early, when he still wasn’t yet old enough to vote. He came to Columbus as a safety, but by the end of his second year, it was pretty evident linebacker was the better fit for him.
“He’s the ultimate pro, he’s been that way,” OSU linebackers coach James Laurinaitis said. “I’ve been secretly pounding the table for Sonny to play linebacker for probably since he got here. You just saw that frame and you knew, let the kid eat a cheeseburger, and he’ll get to that right weight. He’s the leader of the front seven and the leader of the entire team … When you’re a leader, it’s hard because everyone’s looking at you to step out of line. Sonny’s done a great job of taking that over.”
In his first year playing the position, Styles settled into the role at Will and recorded 100 total tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss, six sacks, five pass deflections, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery. Not to mention, the season ended with Styles helping OSU hoist a national championship trophy for the first time since 2014. His journey has already resonated with younger players on OSU’s roster.
“The way he leads the whole team is amazing,” freshman linebacker TJ Alford said. “The way he switched from safety to linebacker and how he learned so much from one year with Laurinaitis was awesome.”
Looking even further ahead, Styles is probably the frontrunner to receive Ohio State’s famed Block O jersey this fall. If nothing else, it’s probably a very safe bet he’ll be a team captain by the end of the summer.
“I think we’ve got a lot of good leaders on this team, but I think I started to carry myself the right way, the way I was raised,” Styles said. “I feel like I’ve been playing the position longer than a year, so that’s a good thing. I’m just trying to get better each and every day.”
Styles is talking the talk in practice as someone who has walked the walk, as they say. Seeing the new championship banners hung up at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center practice field is a source of pride for someone who was a starter on a championship team, but he came back to OSU for his senior season because of a purpose: Win another one.
Styles now knows the ingredients of a championship roster, and besides the talent necessary on the field, he says the connection each and every player has with each other matters the most, especially since it can build confidence playing alongside the athlete next to you. That’s the kind of chemistry Styles and OSU are trying to install in the spring with so many defensive starters departing. Because the end goal remains the same.
“The energy right now is just this team trying to prove that we’re our own story,” Styles said. “I think that’s just a big emphasis that last year was their own team and we won a national championship and guys from that team, we’ll hold onto that forever. But this team, we’re trying to build our own story, we have something to prove and we have a little chip on our shoulder.”
