LB Alex “Sonny” Styles (National Champion)

[ScriptOhio]

College football Freaks List 2025: Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith tops a list of 101

The 2025 Freaks List is here. College football is close!

www.nytimes.com

College football Freaks List 2025: Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith tops a list of 101​

Even though I’ve been reporting the Freaks List since 2005, I am still blown away numerous times while working on this project with what I hear about some of the amazing things college football players have done or can do.

I rely on the intel from coaches, schools, teammates, parents, NFL scouts, NFL Scouting Combine trainers and agents. As you can see, the hardest part of this project is keeping it to 100. To think, when I first started the list, there were only 10.

No. 10 Sonny Styles, Ohio State, linebacker​

Styles has started 28 games and won’t turn 21 until November. Last year, he finished second on the team in tackles with 100, with 10.5 TFLs and five broken-up passes. The son of former Ohio State star Lorenzo Styles Sr., who won a Super Bowl with the St. Louis Rams, is a remarkable athlete. At 6-4 1/2, 243 pounds, he broad jumped 11-0, vertical jumped 40 inches and squatted 675 pounds. His body fat is 10 percent. If not for Jeremiah Smith, Styles would be the Buckeyes’ biggest Freak. (The truth is, it’s close between them.)

“He’s a little faster,” Styles said of Smith, who hit 23.5 mph this year. “My one last year was like 23.2. My most recent one was 22.8. He’s rolling. We’re super competitive with each other. We’ll do bike sprints against each other. We’ll push sleds. We have a bunch of great athletes always pushing each other.”

Like Smith, Styles credits his father for helping him get a good start on developing his Freaky athleticism.

“When I was younger, I did a lot of explosive training with my dad,” he said. “At 5, 6 (years old), we were doing ladders, running with the parachutes, doing broad jumps up hills, box jumps, jump squats. He always made everything a competition.”

Styles said DB Brenten Jones, a 6-2, 205-pound former walk-on, is in the running for biggest Buckeye Freak: “He runs like 23.5, jumps 11-feet broad. Vert’s almost 40. He is a Freak.”
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6483745/2025/07/16/college-football-quarterback-tiers-rankings/