Ohio State Football: New blitzes will help defense

Jim Knowles is still in the process of installing his new defense for the Ohio State football team. There are freshmen who aren’t even on campus yet that will need to learn it. Players who are on campus still need to learn it. It can be a fairly complicated defense at times.

What’s not complicated is the fact that it won’t be as basic as it once was. That includes blitzes coming from different areas of the field. Ohio State hardly blitzed at all a year ago and that made it much easier for teams to sit in the pocket and find open receivers.

Knowles is expected to have a blitz package that helps solve those issues. He will also have some run blitzes that will help the Buckeyes’ issue of stopping the run that reared its ugly head in the losses against Oregon and TTUN. Those might be the most important blitz packages.

The defense doesn’t need to improve by a significant margin for this Ohio State football team to contend. We’ve talked about that over and over again. Blitzing at least mixes up the coverages that other teams will see and makes them stop and think. When offenses have to think, bad things happen.

Knowles has talked all Spring about being the aggressor he wants to dictate what the offense does, not vice versa. The Buckeyes do have two talented cornerbacks that can be left on islands if needed. I would expect to see that a decent amount this season, especially when blitzes are deployed.

I can’t wait to see all of the different looks that this Buckeye defense shows throughout the season. I don’t think the Silver Bullets will be back quite yet, but we’re working our way in that direction.