Ohio State football: Tommy 2.0 decides to be a Buckeye

The Ohio State football team received a commitment from 2025 in-state linebacker Eli Lee late Wednesday evening.  The 6-3 215 lb. linebacker from Archbishop Hoban High School in Akron, Ohio received his offer from the Buckeyes on October 4.

Lee was a part of the large number of recruits who made the trip to Columbus in person to watch the Penn State game this past weekend. Obviously, Lee saw and heard everything he needed and decided he didn’t want to wait any longer to make the announcement that he was going to be a Buckeye.

Lee’s old-school style of play reminds me of former Buckeye and Dallas Cowboy linebacker turned radio personality Bobby Carpenter. For a more current comparison, the coaching staff has coined Lee as Tommy 2.0 as in the next Tommy Eichenberg. In other words, Lee can read and diagnose plays quickly from the middle of the field and is a tackling machine.

Lee isn’t currently a top 250 recruit, but that all could change once this season ends and the recruiting experts watch his junior film. Currently, 247sports has Lee ranked 380 nationally, the 26th linebacker in the class of 2025, and the 13th highest-ranked recruit in the state of Ohio in their composite rankings.

Lee’s statistics as a sophomore included 149 tackles, 36 tackles for loss, and 13 sacks according to Scouting Ohio. Over the summer at the Ohio State camps, he was clocked at 4.78 seconds in the 40-yard dash and 4.38 in the 20-yard shuffle. He benched 250 pounds and squatted 600.

Lee is the fourth recruit from the class of 2025 to commit to the Ohio State football program and the second from the state of Ohio. The other three recruits who have committed in this class are QB Tavien St. Clair from Bellefontaine, Ohio, CB Blake Woodby from Baltimore, Maryland, and WR Jayvan Boggs from Cocoa, Florida.