Ohio State Football: Three ways to fix the defensive line

A more creative way to get to the quarterback is to run some stunts up front. Having JTT or Zach Harrison go from the outside to the inside on some plays could confuse some offensive lines. It could lead to easy sacks because teams won’t be ready for that.

Stunting isn’t something that the Buckeyes have shown a lot on film. That could also help the effectiveness of running some stunts. If teams don’t know that it’s coming, it’s hard to prepare for it and deal with it when it actually happens to them.

Again, this is something that should be used frugally. Stunting a lot could kill the defensive line’s ability to stop the run. This should only be used in certain passing situations where you want to catch the other team off guard and maybe get an easy sack on an obvious passing down.

The Buckeyes have the speed on the defensive line to make this an effective technique. Most of the players who get a lot of snaps can use that speed to bring the quarterback down. That is especially true if they play the freshmen lineman as mentioned before.

If the coaching staff can implement these three things, the defensive line should see increased production. Not only will they be able to sack the quarterback more often, but they will also be more effective in tackling running backs behind the line of scrimmage.

Hopefully, we can see these things being done as early as this week against Rutgers.