Most of Purdue’s attempts to run the football last week were met by resistance from linebacker Arvell Reese (above). (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Arvell Reese waited for his time to be starting linebacker, and when his time came he didn’t waste the opportunity. He’s turned it into an audition to be a first-round NFL Draft pick.
Columbus, OH – At a lesser program – anywhere but Ohio State and a handful of other blue-blood brethren – Arvell Reese would have been a freshman phenom.
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And probably some level of an All-American as a sophomore.
At those schools, athletes of Reese’s talent and ceiling don’t hone their skills while older players are rewarded for their time. Waiting your turn? There’s no time to waste, especially when a head coach needs to prove he’s the guy.
Veteran columnist Jeff Gilbert writes Ohio State football and basketball and OHSAA sports for Press Pros Magazine.com.
Talent like Reese was born with gets on the field for playoff wannabes … now. Those teams are desperate for talent infusions, and they must get the most possible out of Reese-type players before they transfer to a blue blood.
But waiting your turn happens to a lot of players at Ohio State. They arrive knowing it and being OK with it because the ultimate payoff could be a national championship and even higher draft potential.
No matter how many times your freshman talent flashes on the field like a brilliant lightning strike, you wait.
Unless you are Jeremiah Smith. In 2024, he was an anomaly. He still is.
Reese, though, in 2025 is the norm at Ohio State. He didn’t come into a thin-on-experience position like running backs Bo Jackson and Isaiah West did this year. The Buckeyes had the luxury of allowing Reese to watch and learn behind Cody Simon and Sonny Styles.
The experienced players in front of Reese meant he was the player who played just enough as a freshman on special teams not to be redshirted, who played in every game as a backup as a sophomore, who is a starter as a junior, who has blossomed into a first-round NFL Draft pick come April.
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And that’s a good timeline for Ohio State. The Buckeyes have the depth to rely on experience at most positions, which affords the time to be patient with development.
“You see this in guys in year three, sometimes year four, when the program kicks in,” head Buckeye Ryan Day said. “All the work that they’ve done up to that point, it all starts to come together. You see that with a lot of our guys, but in particular with Arvell.”
Reese’s stats say this: team-high 55 total tackles, 29 unassisted tackles, 10 tackles for loss, six sacks, two quarterback hurries, two pass deflections.
Your eyes tell you this: Wow! He’s fast. He hits hard. Nobody can stop him from going where he wants to go. He dictates where and when he will get there.
Arvell Reese and Kenyatta Jackson Combine to pancake sack Illinois quarterback Luke Altmyer.
The scouting reports say this: A linebacker who can play on the edge, beat any tackle, and run down the quarterback. A 6-foot-4 frame that carries 240 pounds with a long reach. Great instincts against the run. Elite strength. Already plays in NFL schemes. Maybe, as The Athletic’s draft expert says, is the No. 1 prospect in the next draft.
Reese began learning what it takes to turn talent into an elite prospect as a high school player for Ted Ginn Sr. at Cleveland Glenville. Ginn’s goal is to get as many players as possible prepared to be productive Buckeyes. He says it’s his program’s responsibility to send players to all of Ohio’s state schools to help them build their programs.
The Ginn-coached mindset is a well-known quality to coaches like Day. That mindset didn’t allow Reese to become discouraged as he waited to play. He wasn’t sidetracked when he spent two months on the defensive line. He actively learned from Simon and Styles.
“He had it the minute he walked in the door,” Day said of Reese’s mindset to keep moving forward so he would be ready when his time came. “Arvell never gets distracted with the noise. He just focuses on what matters, and that’s a unique trait.”
The noise is plenty. He’s a finalist for the Bednarik, Butkus and Lombardi awards. He knows the NFL is ready and waiting for him. But the mindset he arrived in Columbus with has kept him focused on now.
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“His athletic ability, his mindset, and now the understanding of what goes on in that room and what James [Laurinaitis] has done, in terms of just a football IQ in that room, is allowing him to play at a high level,” Day said. “All that combines to what you see on the field.”
Day was asked if he’d ever been around a player with Reese’s skill, talent and versatility to play linebacker the way he does.
“I’m trying to think if there’s been somebody I’ve been around that has that type of a skill set, as talented as Arvell … probably not … probably not,” he said. “I mean, Sonny’s right there, too. Both of those guys have that ability and that versatility. I’d have to go back and think. They’re right there at the top.”
We can only assume first-year defensive coordinator Matt Patricia feels the same about Reese. He hasn’t spoken to the media since September 17. But on that day, just a few days after the Buckeyes beat Ohio, Patricia praised the linebacker who allows him to dial up all sorts of formations that put Reese in all sorts of positions.
“Just trying to put a little bit of uncertainty in the offense to figure out what exactly is he doing on this play,” Patricia said. “I think that’s the biggest thing that you can do with guys that have that multiple ability on the field.”
Reese might have been in stealth mode to start the season. But when he made nine tackles against Texas and sacked Arch Manning, he became more than a blip on the radar. Every game he makes big plays. Against Penn State he had 12 tackles, a sack and 2.5 tackles for loss. He’s done everything but score a touchdown.
And he loves the way Patricia deploys him on the outside, the inside, the end of the line and as a spy on running quarterbacks who are never faster enough to escape.
“He’s putting me in a lot of different spots, a lot of different roles and just showing how versatile I am,” Reese said. “It’s been fun.”
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