Ohio State Football: Linebackers won’t be much of a factor in new defense

We got a glimpse of the new-look defense that the Ohio State football team is running for the first time this past weekend during the Spring Game. Even if it was a very basic look at the new formation, we learned a few things about what this new defense could mean for this season.

One of the things I’ve been talking about is the depth at linebacker. I was really curious to see who got the starting reps at that position. It turns out that it may not matter who gets the reps at those two spots because the linebackers didn’t make a lot of plays on Saturday.

Sure, the linebackers made a few tackles on passes over the middle every now and then. But none of the linebackers came in on blitzes or made tackles for losses on run plays. There were no “wow” plays from anyone in that group during the entirety of the Spring Game.

Again, some of that is probably attributed to the fact that Jim Knowles put out the most vanilla version of this defense he possibly could out there. During the season, you could see Steele Chambers or Tommy Eichenberg coming off the edge more to make plays.

Even so, the linebackers were way less a part of this defense than I thought they would be. I found myself more drawn to the defensive line watching Jack Sawyer either rush or drop back in coverage or watching the secondary against these great receivers.

Maybe it’s a good thing that I didn’t notice the linebackers as much. It’s the unit with the most question marks on the defensive side of the ball. It’s the unit with the least amount of experience. Perhaps that’s what Knowles wants all along with this 4-2-5 scheme.

We’ll see if the linebackers end up making a bigger impact once the Fall rolls around. I’ve heard multiple reports that the entire defense, including the linebackers, has played very well against this offense. That’s really good to hear for Ohio State football fans.