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Vo. 1, No. 26
Hello and welcome to another edition of Cus Words Sports!
This week in Ohio State football, we are reviewing what happened at the 2026 NFL Scouting Combine.
I went to Indianapolis for four days, and I would say it was a successful trip. I got a bunch of video for my social media channels1, listened to a lot of football talk — including about the Bengals, which I already covered here and at Press Pros Magazine — and had one of the best steaks I can remember at St. Elmo’s.
What did I learn?
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Everyone confirmed Arvell Reese and Sonny Styles are very big and very fast
Of course we already knew that, but they were still impressive.
Reese confirmed he wants to be an outside linebacker or defensive end at the next level after coming up as an inside linebacker at Ohio State. That makes sense as it looks like his skill set is best suited for rushing the passer, but he has the lateral movement to play in space as well when necessary.
Nonetheless:
“I haven’t even scratched the surface of what really I can do pass rushing for real.”
Sonny actually made bigger waves during the workouts thanks to his status as a regular ol’ linebacker as opposed to a pass rusher, run stopping DT or cover corner.
Those premium positions are supposed to take precedence in the first round of the draft, but Styles is so good at his position he could buck the trend….
Positional value is also a big debate with Caleb Downs
Safety is typically a position teams can wait to draft because there are more body types that can fill it than there are guys who can play the aforementioned positions (or quarterback or offensive tackle).
Downs, though, is also a special player who is going to force teams to think outside the box.
Just ask him.
“Being able to play in the box, being able to play in the deep part of the field, being able to play slot, nickel or dime, I feel like that makes people unique.”
He’s also well aware of the safety discourse.
“At the end of the day, it’s really just who’s the best defender. It’s not really positional value, it’s who affects the game. If you affect the game in a lot of ways, that’s what’s most important. That’s really all I can worry about, honestly. I can’t worry about what anybody else says or what the coaches have done. At the end of the day my film is what it is, and they’re gonna make a decision based off that.”
Beyond that, I think the most interesting interview was Davison Igbinosun
He was a bit of a mystery man when he transferred from Mississippi three years ago, especially since he came from New Jersey originally.
We talked to him a few times but not many — in all likelihood because he had a stutter that made it difficult for him to answer questions at times.
When he took the mic this week, though, Davison was impressive. He had a couple of pauses, but overall he seemed relaxed and gave a lot of confident, insightful answers.
That was great because you like to see people grow and overcome adversity, but also because he shared some great insight into the impact he had on the cornerbacks room.
It’s easy to forget now, but that group was in bad shape when he arrived in 2023.
Tim Walton recruiting better players certainly helped, but Igbinosun is credited with injecting some necessary confidence, competition and swagger into the group.
“Hopefully I left a great legacy like not only for the secondary but just Ohio State in general…”
“Of course there is friction when you walk into a room, but I would say when I walked in Denzel Burke was the starter and there was no other solidified starter so it was either going to be more or Jordan Hancock. So we started to go at it because we both wanted the spot. Just going through a situation like that we became the best of friends, so walking into a room in a situation like that just widens everybody else’s standards because if you see somebody walk into the building and he wants your job, you’re gonna do everything it takes to keep your job.”
“The thing at Ohio State we say the seats are not owned. Those seats you’re sitting in, the rent is do every day so you have to do something to keep your job or do something to take someone’s job.”
But what does this mean for the 2025 Buckeyes?
Worth noting: I left the combine with a day of college prospect media interviews to go, but there was no reason to stay Saturday because that was when offensive linemen were scheduled to speak.
Ohio State does not have anyone from its line going through the draft process, which is probably instructive of what happened last season for the Buckeyes.
It was kind of a rollercoaster as they entered the year with a lot of question marks based on all those guys who got drafted from the national championship team last spring, but then they immediately shot to the top of the rankings when they choked out Texas in the opener.
At times the Buckeyes looked dominant, but Indiana and then Miami brought them back to reality with crushing end-of-season defeats.
My immediate reaction to that was, “Well, Ohio State was not actually that good.”
By THAT good, I mean an all-time team.
Did the 2025 Buckeyes have an opportunity to win it all?
Yes, no question. They were a play away from beating Indiana, who slaughtered Alabama and Oregon in the CFP before outlasting Miami in the title game.
Ohio State did not put its best foot forward against the Hoosiers or Hurricanes, but Ryan Day and Brian Hartline (however much he was involved) had some limitations to work with. The offensive line and running backs were average at best, and the quarterback was a redshirt freshman still seeing many things for the first time.
If one of those groups were elite, then they could have picked up the others.
Instead, the onus was on the staff to craft a game plan that accentuated the strengths and hid the weaknesses, and they failed to do so.
That is disappointing, but it’s not a crime against football either.
All in all, I am not sure how high I would rank this in terms of disappointments/missed opportunities.
From recent years, I would rank it behind 2019 and 2015.
1998 was more painful, too.
Historically it’s hard to see anything ever topping 1969, but there are lots of years the Buckeyes were a game away from being champions so that’s a whole discussion we can have another day.
What do you think?
I’d love your feedback!
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BONUS COVERAGE!
I already mentioned the Press Pros Bengals story, but here’s the link again just in case:
And over at MensJournal.com, I wrote about Sonny Styles’ unprecedented showing at the combine on Thursday and an interesting potential change to the targeting rule in college football.
Check it out!
1 The social media channels are a bit of a side project that is designed to make the best use possible of my time at interviews. I still prefer written words, but some people like video. If I am attending something, I might as well record it, and if I record it, I might as well share, right? Plus some people get their news at Facebook while others spend more time on Twitter. Then YouTube has a massive reach, so the hope is to use it kind of as free advertising for my other work. We’ll see how it turns out… Oh yeah and theoretically those channels can be monetized, but that doesn’t start until I get a certain number of subscribers. So if you could subscribe to those, that would be great! And as with everything else, sharing is always appreciated.