Ohio State linebacker Cody Simon announces return for 2024 season
COLUMBUS — Ohio State linebacker Cody Simon announced Tuesday in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center that he will return for the 2024 season, what will be his fifth year with the program.
“I talked with my family a lot, but I’m going to stay for another year,” Simon said. “I’m really happy with my decision.”
Simon added: “There’s a lot that goes into it and wanting to complete your goals that you set for yourself, and there’s so many team goals that I want to still complete. We haven’t done a great job completing them the past couple years. I want to be able to go accomplish those goals: win a Big Ten Championship again and beat ‘The Team Up North.’ I think there’s lot of unfinished business.”
Simon is the next quarterback of the defense in the wings of coordinator Jim Knowles’ unit. Having already accepted an invitation to play in the 2024 Reese’s Senior Bowl, linebacker Tommy Eichenberg is expected to depart after five years with the Buckeyes.
Simon filled in for Eichenberg as the starting middle linebacker against Michigan State and Minnesota in Weeks 11-12 and piled up 301 defensive snaps in 2023.
He was once again was Ohio State’s go-to third linebacker when it deviated from its 4-2-5 base formation, and he also rotated in otherwise, notably outsnapping Steele Chambers at Purdue in Week 7. Simon’s regular season defensive snap count didn’t mark a career high — that still belongs to his 2021 season when he started 10 games — but he played a more significant role than he did last year.
His 45 total tackles are good for sixth on the team.
Simon was a top-10 linebacker in the 2020 recruiting class, according to the On3 Industry Ranking. Simon was not only the 10th-best ‘backer in the 2020 cycle, but he was also the top-rated New Jersey prospect at the position that year.
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The 6-foot-2, 239-pound Jersey City native played for St. Peter’s Prep, where he won the Non-Public Group IV state title game. He made nine tackles and housed a 70-yard punt return in that game. The year before that, as a junior, Simon notched 89 tackles, 13.5 TFLs, 4.5 sacks and a pick-six.
Simon played in a total of 31 games for the Buckeyes his first three years in Columbus. His lone season as a starter preceded the hiring of Knowles and Ohio State’s subsequent switch to a two-linebacker system. Simon still managed the seventh-most total tackles (32) on the team in 2022 despite ranking 16th among all Buckeyes players in defensive snaps, per Pro Football Focus.
He built on that efficient 2022 campaign in the 2023 regular season. While he grew in that role, he’s in line for an even bigger one next season.
“I look forward to getting that challenge,” Simon said, when asked about replacing Eichenberg as the heart and soul of the Buckeyes’ defense. “I don’t really want anything to be solely on my shoulders. It’s all team-based, and I want everyone to feel that sense of brotherhood and that you can come in and really make a difference next year. But I’m looking to myself and knowing that it’s a big challenge.
“That I need to be able to lead the defense and really have a strong year on defense.”
