How Lorenzo Styles’ ‘crazy’ work ethic gives him high ceiling at Notre Dame
Two things went wrong when Jack Coan tried connecting with Lorenzo Styles on a deep shot on first-and-10 from the Irish 30 in the third quarter against North Carolina.
The graduate student quarterback underthrew the wide-open true freshman wide receiver running a skinny post down the seam. Styles slowed his stride and leaped to high point the ball. It would have been a touchdown had Coan dropped it in a bucket. It would have been a gain of at least 40 yards had Styles caught the underthrow anyway.
But that didn’t happen either. And that’s totally unlike Styles.
He was on the field in the second half of a four-point game against an opponent with a potent offense because he’s usually reliable. He’s usually a playmaker. Good things happen when the ball hits his hands.
Usually. Just not that time.
Styles got off the turf and immediately jogged toward the huddle. No pouting. No pounding his fists. No shaking his head. He shrugged off the mistake and tried to get back to work, but he was pulled from the game.
Walk-on Matt Salerno replaced him. It could have been the type of drop that haunts a first-year player for the rest of the season, but it wasn’t. Styles wouldn’t let it be.
“I’m going to make the next play,” Styles remembers thinking. “I knew I was going to get another play. I just told myself I’d make the next one.”
Head coach Brian Kelly told him the same thing. Junior running back Kyren Williams got the ball two times in a row for the Irish. He netted 22 yards on a carry and a catch. He was injured on the latter, so the Irish had to restock the field with another playmaker.
Enter Styles.
He caught a 25-yard pass from Coan over the middle to put Notre Dame in the red zone on his second play upon reentering the game. The Irish ultimately scored a touchdown on the drive. Styles could say he had a hand in it after all.
“He’s got a great demeanor,” Kelly said after the game. “His work ethic is outstanding during the week. His volume is amazing. We can throw a lot of volume on him.
“You can see him when he touches the ball — he’s explosive.”
The athleticism stems from his father, Lorenzo Styles Sr., who played linebacker for three seasons (1992-94) at Ohio State and was a third-round selection in the 1995 NFL Draft. The elder Styles spent six seasons in the league with the Atlanta Falcons and St. Louis Rams. He won a Super Bowl (XXXIV) with the latter.
The reliability, though? The calm, cool demeanor Kelly spoke of? That comes from his mother, Laverna Styles. Kelly said it’s “unmistakable” that Laverna Styles has had a profound influence on her son’s effort on and off the field.
“She is an incredible mother and a strong figure in that family,” Kelly said. “That has, in my eyes, created such a discipline in how Lorenzo acts on a day-to-day basis.
“When he comes to practice, he’s prepared. He’s ready. He’s disciplined. He does that in the classroom and brings it to the football field.”
True freshman quarterback Tyler Buchner sees it every day. He’s Styles’ roommate. Buchner has obviously been thrown into the fire perhaps more than any other freshman on the roster outside of left tackle Joe Alt. It’s Buchner, after all, whom Styles said he had to stay up late with over the summer going over signs and signals trying to understand the intricacies of the Irish offense.
But when it comes to putting those practices in play, Buchner said Styles is unmatched.
“He’s extremely hard-working to where you almost think he’s crazy because of how hard he works,” Buchner said. “It’s great living with him because of how dedicated he is to football and school and everything he does. He gets up early in the morning and stays up late at night.”
The hard work could pay off immensely in Notre Dame’s final few games of the season. Graduate student wide receiver and team captain Avery Davis went down with a torn ACL against Navy Nov. 6. Kelly announced two days later Styles would assume the role of starting slot receiver, making that dropped pass against the Tar Heels even more of a distant memory.
Styles amassed 160 yards on nine catches in a reserve role through the Irish’s first nine games. He only had one catch for four yards on four targets in his first career start at Virginia, but he took an end-around 52 yards to the house only for it to be called back on a holding penalty. He still gained 37 yards.
Styles hadn’t been on the field for more than eight snaps in one game through six weeks. Then he played 15 against USC, 37 against North Carolina, 13 against Navy and 19 against Virginia. He could easily set a new career-high in that department against Georgia Tech or Stanford.
And he’ll be ready for that. His upbringing prepared him to be so.
“My parents, both my mom and dad, demand a lot out of me,” Styles said. “They always put that pressure on me since I was a young kid. Then I put that pressure on myself. With those two things going together, I feel like it turned out really well for me.”
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