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Is It Time For Jim Knowles To Bring The Jack To The Ohio State Defense? · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes Tomorrow morning for Tuesday May twenty, first time your host Tom
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  or the Akron game in one hundred and two days, the game against Michigan
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  in one hundred and ninety three days. All Right. We get inspiration for
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  these shows from a lot of places. Sometimes it is good old Twitter dot
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  com. Read a tweet earlier this week from Devin Bradcliff, one of the
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  ex's nosegurus at Buckeyeheadle dot com. I'm just gonna read it to you.
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  Watch some old film, did some drawing, came to a conclusion, bring
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  back the jacklnebacker. We have talked about the jacklnebacker approximately twelve thousand times on
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  this show and on Buckeye Weekly over the years. Feel like we've seen it
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  about three times since Jim Knowles has been at Ohio State. But is it
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  time to bring back the jacklinebacker to Ohio State. Let's ask Devin all about
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  that. Devin, of course a defensive football coach by trade. So Devin,
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  let us know what did you watch and what was the jack able to
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  do in that defense that made you think, you know what might be time
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  to bring it to Ohio State. Well, I was going back and you
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  know, doing some off season study and and kind of inadvertently unintentionally was found
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  myself looking at some of Jim noles old stuff from his time in particular Oklahoma
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  State previously right before he came to Ohio State of course, you know,
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  the or the twenty twenty one season, I think it was the last year
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  Oklahoma State if our call correctly, and really taking a look at what he
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  did with what, you know, the infamous jack linebacker position, which we
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  have talked about. I think it's up to fifteen thousand times as official count
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  now, so we kind of low balled the estimate there and look at what
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  he was able to use the jack linebacker to do to fix issues in the
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  run game. More often than not, we typically hear about the jack linebacker
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  as to as a hybrid pass rush playmaker defensive end. And yes, coach
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  Knowles does use that position to create pass rush, to free up a defensive
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  end to go attack in particular typically in past rush downs go attack quarterback to
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  try and make plays. And we have seen that use some here at Ohio
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  State. What I want to talk about more and what my we still call
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  them tweets posts comment social media comment was was more regards to is how he
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  uses them to match numbers in the run game, in particular against particular styles
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  of offenses. So he tried it some in two thousands, you know,
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  go back in history here, he tried it some, and when he first
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  got to Ohio State, he tried Jack Sawyer package with us as the jack
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  and had mixed reviews at best. Obviously they didn't love it because they didn't
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  run it at all last season at all, and we didn't see it all
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  this spring. Even so, it doesn't look like it's necessarily something they have
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  in the plans for this coming season. But the reason I think they need
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  to bring it back is, again, like I mentioned previously, what they
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  do in the run game. So first, what you got to look at
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  to start a very basic level is what Ohio State does on defense. Is
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  there a one gap defense? No, The gaps defined as an area between
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  the offensive linemen and Ohio State typically under Jim Knowles are really as long as
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  we can go back, even going back to Urban, Meyer typically has one
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  defensive player responsible for one gap on the offense. Well, offenses are good,
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  they're smart, so they find ways to create new gaps on the offense
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  through pulling linemen. You know you pull a backside guard, well, you
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  create a new gap on a different side of the a different side of the
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  ball, different side of the center. Excuse me. So what the jack
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  linebacker is able to do for Jim Knowles is he one puts them a three
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  man front, and in one particular call, he puts them behind the center
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  as sort of a middle linebacker. If you're just looking at the alignment in
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  between his two typical inside linebackers, I like to think of a more of
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  a stand up defensive tackle because what that particular player is doing when he's in
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  that position is he's reading the blocking scheme. So it looks like he reads
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  the triangle again, kind of like a traditional middle linebacker. And what I'm
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  referring to is the guards and the centers, and he's reading the blocking scheme.
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  So if we're gonna talk about gap scheme, which is typically involves a
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  pollar, just to give an easy example, so the jack will be aligned
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  of a center. He'll see a guard pull from one side to the other.
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  Well, the jack will now become that plus one defender to match the
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  numbers on that side of the ball for the defense. So the jack will
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  go to that side of the go side of the offense, and he'll fit
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  that new gap created by the puller. You'll have your front side linebacker,
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  let's just say a mike linebacker in this particular example, he will fit the
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  other gap on the play side. And what you've done is you've now made
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  what every defensive coach is trying to create, what's typically referred to as a
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  free hitter or unblocked defender, and that's the backside linebacker. So when you
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  go back and watch the film of Gymnal's defense, that backside linebacker quite frequently
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  is unblocked and free to make plays so or free to make tackles or make
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  the big run through and make the stop. But it all occurs and happens
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  because of what the jack linebacker is able to do by being that plus one
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  to both sides the ball to even up the numbers. So when you start
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  watching teams like we'll start Notre Dame beginning of the season this previous season,
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  when they started pulling linemen, running gap scheme, getting an eye formation,
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  adding an insert blocker, Ohio State found themselves in some trouble. They were
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  not able to match the numbers immediately and their notre dame in this example again
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  was finding some success with those insert blockers. Well, if Jim Knowles had
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  the ability to jump in his jack package or jack look, he now had
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  that plus one defender to match the insert as well as where the blocking scheme
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  fits up and where the run fits occur. The backside linebackers now free to
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  is unblocked and free to make plays for the defense. Okay, so this
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  also makes a tremendous medicense And Jim Noles obviously was doing this for a reason
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  at Oklahoma State and presumably before that Duke, So there's an obvious question.
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  Jim Knowles has not suddenly gotten stupid, So why has he not incorporated this
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  the first couple of years at Ohio State? Is it? I mean,
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  there's there's sort of the idea that you know they have. It was sort
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  of you had to do this because you could. You couldn't get the five
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  star kind of guys at Oklahoma State and you can at Ohio State, so
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  you don't need to kind of tinker with stuff. Is it? That?
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  Is there some other reason he hasn't incorporated already? What do you think you
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  know that here, we're just gets in the speculation. You know, they
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  tried it with Jack Sawyer. Uh, it just didn't fit right. Jack
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  wasn't necessarily doesn't seem like he was necessarily the right fit. And you know,
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  the way the way Sawyer finished the season last year, I am in
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  no hurry to get him off line of scrimmage either after the performance we saw
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  in in in the bowl game that was, you know, people probably the
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  only bright spot we saw Ohio State fans. So I'm just gonna speculate and
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  guess, but they may not particular the right fit, uh for that type
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  of player to fit there. You know, it's not something that you've typically
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  seen a Larry Johnson defense, do you know. He's kind of a He's
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  kind of a tried and true four down uh defensive line coach, and to
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  get in that three down look, it does require a little bit of different
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  teaching of your defensive line. You do have to play with the true zero
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  or head up on the center nose tackle. Now, granted he doesn't typically
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  two gap like you like you come like say an old squad of Amma nose
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  tackle or Georgia tackle. Jordan Davis type and there's a sidebar they're even going
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  away from that sum anymore. So I think it's probably not one necessarily big,
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  aha, glaring at glaring reason why. It's probably just this whole bunch
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  of things when you you know, you're sitting in the meeting rooms when it's
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  you know, off season, and you're looking at strengths, weaknesses, what
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  we do best, who we got, you know, you come to the
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  decision this probably isn't it best for us right now at Ohio State. Without
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  again, that'd just be my speculation or at best educated guess. And you
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  know, they've talked about the Jack a little bit, and they haven't talked
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  about it as much this year, and that's probably based somewhat on the media
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  kind of going Okay, fool me once, fool me twice, YadA,
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  YadA, YadA. I I don't I'm not going to ask about this.
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  It really didn't get asked about a bunch this spring. When they did talk
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  about it, they talked about Mitchell Melton, maybe C. J. Hickson.
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  That Jack role. Is that the type of guy that you could see
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  filling that role for Ohio State. They decide to do this one thing,
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  you hear Jim Knowles talk about and he talks about this with his safeties and
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  as well as the jack position. He's always had kind of a safety in
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  his you know, throughout his coaching career, safety that was kind of too
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  big to be a line be a dB, not quite big enough to be
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  a linebacker. So he found creative waves to get the best out of him,
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  and he'd you know, do all these different coverage rotations and get him
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  in the box and put in the best position to make plays for the defense.
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  And if the jack linebacker spots kind of the same thing. He's not
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  quite a linebacker, not quite a defensive end, but he's a guy that
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  just runs and make plays and has a real knack for the game. So
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  I think for that position you need a guy coach, and Oles says to
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  himself, that's just kind of a ballplayer. Doesn't necessarily fit an archetype or
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  prototype of a position you have on a recruiting board, like, hey,
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  our defensive ends need to be six to four two fifty and all our safeties
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  need to be six one two a five. That the kid's just the player.
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  The kid that plays that position is just a ballplayer. So I did
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  not necessarily a prototype that they have, So I think that's just something they
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  got to look for us. Who's our ballplayer, they can just kind of
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  make football plays for him, all right. So we've talked about this for
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  years. I mean, Jim Noles showed up in two thousand and two and
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  that was basically the only thing he got asked about that Sprague, and then
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  he got asked about a bunch in the fall, and he asked about it
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  more last year, but less than in twenty twenty two. This year really
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  almost not at all. I had kind of given up on it and then
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  saw your tweet and thought, well, maybe it's, you know, the
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  gift of the girl trying at kombucha or whatever and she's no never what Maybe
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  I don't know. That was that was me kind of considering the jack once
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  again. So we've talked about this for years. Do you think there's actually
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  a chance it happens this year or are they more likely to just kind of
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  look look around the defense and go, we got a bunch of veterans,
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  we're just gonna play it safe. We're going to stay in more of a
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  base. Look, what's a likelihood they actually do something like this and really
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  kind of go a little bit, a little bit off the board here.
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  No, I would not anticipate, uh, you know, any big major
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  changes up front for the Ohio State defense. And again the strength of defense
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  probably is their defense. Well, secondaries should be pretty good as well,
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  but the defensive lines got you know, three or four turning starters. I'll
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  not much of a draft you know, draft pick follower guy, but I'm
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  assuming in the early draft boards you could see both defensive ends and their three
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  technique be Day one, day two picks. So I don't know why you
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  necessarily want to overhaul what you're doing up front for just this season. But
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  to give a longer answer, the jack position really needs to be a full
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  time position in order for its maximize its value for the defense. This can't
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  be a package or hey, we're gonna run in this fifth year senior because
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  he's been such a hard worker and had bad luck in his career. We're
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  gonna throw him a bone, you know, and this run this little package.
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  When it's most effective, it's when that guy's a full time player,
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  full time starter, full time position, and coach Knowles is able to get
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  in and out of his three and four down looks and move that guy around
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  so offenses are forced to count for him as a full time We're not sure
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  where he's gonna fit tight player again to maximize the value of the position.
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  All right, Well, if you enjoy hearing Devin talk about football as much
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  as I do, We're enjoy hearing Ross talk as much about football as I
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  do, or any of our other exches knows Guruz. You can join Buckeye
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  nose. That's all at bucke Huddle dot com. On The Huddle Bard presented
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  by Jeff Ruby Steakhouse. You can also find Devin on our postgame show Ian
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  what they saw, what they learned. All that all at YouTube dot com
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  slash Buckeye huddle. That'll do it for today. Thank you guys all for
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  joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.