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How Aggressive Does The 2024 Ohio State Defense Need To Be? · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to buck Eyes Tomorrow morning for Thursday, June twentieth. I'm your host,
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  Tom Moore. The Akron game in seventy two days, the game against
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  Michigan in one hundred and sixty three days. When that Akron game rolls around,
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  we will get a chance to see year three of the Jim Knowles defense.
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  Expectations safe to say, pretty high for that defense this year. But
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  obviously there's a lot of returning talent. Obviously there's some new talent and guys
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  like Caleb Downs, But what is that defense really get to look like?
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  How aggressive are they going to be? Well, we're going to be talking
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  about that today with our buddy Tony Gerdaman a fucke huddle dot com. He
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  just wrote about that on our site. You can read that. You can
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  have a be part of the very interactive conversation about that article on the Huddle
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  Word, presented by Jefferuby Steakhouse. But Tony, the reason is the genesis
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  of this article was a question to Ryan Day. We got a chance to
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  talk to him earlier in the week. He was asked about, you know,
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  how aggressive of the defense going to be? And what did he have
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  to say? Yeah, it's a question I've had, so I asked him
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  and he said they're working on that right now. And basically the example is
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  Jim Knowles's first two years very contrasting styles of aggression and having those as maybe
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  two baselines or two examples where you're going to fall into your aggression levels this
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  year, And he said, that's what they're talking about right now. And
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  you kind of have an idea of what you'd like to do, who you
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  have that can do it, as he said, you can draw out blitzer
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  as it doesn't mean you have guys that are effective blitzers, And so they've
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  got to decide who those guys are, who does what best, who fits
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  in what roles best. And then the other factor into all of this is
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  who are you playing as you don't need to throw out you know, you
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  don't need to go crazy against Akron. You know you might want to go
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  crazy against Oregon and throw some stuff out there. But also they've got a
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  veteran quarterback. So all of these different factors come into play about who you
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  should attack, how you should attack, and who is good at attacking on
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  your team. And when you look at this year's Ohio State team. You
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  can make a you know, the reason they're in this conversation is because you
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  could make a case that, you know, hey, maybe you have so
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  much talent you might want to play it safe. And you can also make
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  the argument that, hey, you have so much talent, you can be
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  more aggressive. So I guess let's state the case for being less aggressive,
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  because in some ways, you know, it's not just the opponent, it's
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  also what's the offense doing. How do they feel like the offense is doing.
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  How do they feel, you know, do they feel they can make
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  up, you know, make up for you know, can they compensate for
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  being less aggressive just because of the pure talent on that defense? Oh yeah,
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  and that's you look at what Iowa has done over the years. They
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  don't do a ton of blitzing. They're just really good at playing their base
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  defense and doing what they do. And so you have to assume when you
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  don't have to assume. You know, when Ryan Day was watching Jim Knowle's
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  first defense in twenty twenty two with plenty of talent, more talent than Iowa,
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  and they're they're attacking and missing tackles and out of position, and you're
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  like, why are we doing all of this? What is it accomplishing?
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  And it was nine percent of the time worked. Every time. It was
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  that other five percent that would lead to big plays. And so like,
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  if we just keep everything in front of us, and and you have J.
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  T. Twohim all the while going against a left tackle or right tackle,
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  Jack Sawyer going against left tackle, right tackle, those guys are going
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  to win some win, win some battles. The interior is going to keep
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  the those guys occupied. You have fantastic corners on the outside. And if
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  you've got defensive ends that can get after the quarterback, and you've got defensive
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  backs that can cover receivers, and then you have a Caleb Downs as your
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  last line of defense, you can afford to just relax and play everything straight
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  up because you're gonna win more battles than not. It's just a matter of
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  do you know, do you are you comfortable just giving up a little bit
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  here and there kind of the the the dink and dunk type of stuff and
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  eventually they're not going to pick up that third and six. Yeah, And
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  that that is, you know, typically a pretty reliable strategy, especially against
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  lesser competition, where you know, if the quarterback is not particularly consistent,
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  and you're asking him to hit two to three passes every set of downs,
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  you're going to miss some. I mean, these are these are college quarterbacks.
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  Some mother is not a hashtag college quarterbacks on Twitter, the way there
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  is a hashtag college kickers for a lot of guys. There might as well
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  be, because that is asking a lot for guys to make consistent brows and
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  get the ball down the field like that. And you know, there certainly
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  was a case to be made in twenty twenty two when OHI to give up
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  a lot of very big plays. You take away the big plays against Michigan,
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  you take away the big plays against Georgia. That team is probably undefeated,
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  but the aggressiveness is part of why they were successful at time. So
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  now let's talk about the case for being more aggressive, because you probably could
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  for the vast majority of the season just sit back and just out talent people,
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  keep things pretty vanilla, and you're going to win at least ten games
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  on your schedule, probably just based on the pure talent of your team being
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  greater than the talent on the opposing sidelines. But then there are gonna be
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  the games where you can't. The talent is equated games that Ryan Day talks
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  about all the time, and it feels like you can't just go double a
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  gup blitz on every play. Obviously you have to be you know, smart
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  about how you're aggressive, but you're gonna have to be mixing it up and
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  being more aggressive against some of those teams too, yeah, for sure.
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  And you also have to figure when you have very talented pass rushers who are
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  already causing issues for an offensive line, you would think a blitzer here and
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  there is going to be more effective because the offensive line is gonna be very
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  preoccupied, quarterback's going to be maybe looking into rush a little bit, and
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  so blitzing can be more effective. And then it also always depends on what
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  do you have behind the blitzer, and do you have if you've got a
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  Caleb Downs back there or you know, a life and ransom. If Caleb
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  Downs is blitzing, they've got guys and secondary that can cover ground and are
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  very good at being at coverage, at not missing tackles, at just being
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  sound. And really, if you've got to sound back end, then you
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  can be more aggressive in that front seven. And then you look at what
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  they've got to work with. And Jim Knowles has said repeatedly you look at
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  CJ. Hicks, who was the number one will linebacker all spring, but
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  also said he's he's better as a blitzer than anything else at this point,
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  so they like to do that with him. And you look at a Sonny
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  Styles playing the same position, can do some different things. Two very athletic
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  guys. Can they play together the different ways that you can use them.
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  Sunny Styles is accustomed to coverage and is still probably underrated or underutilized as a
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  pass rusher, and maybe we'll see some of that this year. But you
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  know, Jordan Hancock likes to blitz from that nickel spot. We've seen Lathan
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  Ransom do it. So they've got guys that can do it and want to
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  do it, and they also have the guys that can be behind them and
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  help them out, and there won't You would think there'd be fewer coverage busts
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  with this Now, you're not going to eliminate all of them because you're playing
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  some pretty decent teams too, especially when as you said, their talent is
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  equated. But it's just a matter of you get the quarterback off of his
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  timing, you get the routes screwed up a little bit, with the quarterback
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  maybe being forced to get rid of the ball quicker, and you're just trying
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  to change the pace and trying to make the quarterback just never, never comfortable.
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  And that's one of the I think the downsides to just playing things straight
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  up. Yeah, And I think a big part of making that quarterback uncomfortable
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  is really mixing up those looks and mixing up the coverages and mixing up the
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  level of aggression. Because if you have the luxury of having, you know,
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  being able to be aggressive, but you also have the luxury of being
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  able to sort of play it a little more straight up the Iowa style defense
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  where you're just kind of you do what you do and you're going to just
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  out execute them. That's the stuff that makes you predictable where you can do
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  you know, it's a pitcher who has four pitches that he can throw for
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  strikes. All four pitches, you don't know what's coming, you can you
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  know, and and if you're looking fastball and you get the change, or
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  maybe even more problematically, if you're looking change and you get the express,
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  well that's pretty hard. And that makes it hard for your posing play callers,
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  that makes it hard for opposing quarterbacks. That's the stuff where you're going
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  to get. You get the silly mistakes, you get the oops, Hey,
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  I you know, what did you think you were going to see out
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  there? I thought this guy, you know, I thought this was going
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  to come and then all of a sudden, boom, it's coming from a
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  different angle, or you're expecting a blitz and they drop or vice versa.
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  That's the stuff that creates mistakes and that leads to turnovers. Yeah, And
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  it's very similar to the pitcher that can throw all four pitches for strikes on
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  any count. And if you've got a defense that can effectively blitz on any
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  down and diss since, then you truly have no idea what to expect.
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  And so that's what they're working on. That's what they'd like to have.
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  And I know with the offense that they have as well, you figure they're
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  going to score more points than last year. So then that kind of begs
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  the same question, Does that mean they can be more aggressive on defense?
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  Yes? Does it mean they need to be? No? So what do
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  you want to do? Probably? Ryan das sided on ONTs to be aggressive
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  in all facets of the game, or at least that's what he says.
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  We have not yet seen it on the special teams. We've seen it routinely
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  in defense, and then last year they kind of backed off of it,
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  and we're one of the best defenses in the nation. So the proof of
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  concept that he's always looking for is they were really good on defense last year
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  and they did not do as much blitzing as Jim Noles normally does, and
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  not nearly as many bells and whistles as Jim Noles nearly does. So to
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  why fix what isn't broken, Well, they did not. In fact,
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  you were unbeaten last year, so it was at least it was at least
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  occasionally from Owens where it could have been a little less broken. So yeah,
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  we'll we'll see how they do this year. It's you know, it's
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  gonna be an interesting year because there's so much talent and the third year of
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  Jim Knowles being at Ohio State. You know, certainly they have installed just
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  about everything that Jim Knowles has at this point. So he always talks about
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  the toolbox and having the tools and toolbox between the between the Jimmies and Joe's,
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  and the x'es and o's. I think this is probably the most tools
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  that Jim Knowles has ever had in his toolbox, so we will see how
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  he chooses to use them this fall. We'll be there for all those games,
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  all those practices at Buckeye huddle dot com. That's where Tony, Kevin
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  and I cover the team, Mark covers recruiting. We got our whole team
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  effects his nose gurus there make you a smarter football fan. It's a very
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  fun and active community on the huddle board, presented by Jeff Ruby Steakhouse all
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  at Buckeye huddle dot com. That'll do it for today. Thank you guys
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  all for joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.