Ohio State Football: Best thing about new defense
By Ryan Stano
The Ohio State football team will be showcasing a new defense this season. Ryan Day brought in Jim Knowles to revamp the defense after it struggled the last two seasons. Knowles brings with him a new 4-2-5 system that has a lot of moving parts with it.
It’s a defense that other Big Ten teams haven’t seen very often and could give them some problems. But that’s not even the best thing about the new defense. The best thing about the new defense is the fact that it is very easy to make adjustments to it.
It’s designed so that the offense doesn’t know where blitzes are coming from or what coverage the team is in. If an offense figures out one aspect of the defense, Knowles can easily switch it up and make something else the focal point to avoid repeatedly getting burned.
This is something that the Buckeyes had issues with over the past could of years. Part of it was the fact that they didn’t have the proper personnel to be able to make switches. Another part was the stubbornness of certain coaches to not change the system.
With this new system in place, and players still learning it, the defense should be much better overall next year. Almost anything is better than what it was in 2021. The secondary was really bad in 2020, but the rest of the defense wasn’t terrible like it was last year.
We’ll have to see what the results on the field look like when we finally get to see it in action against another team. That won’t happen for a few months though. Until then, it’s up to the players to learn all of the moving parts in this complicated defense.
If they can pick it up quickly, they should be able to make a really big improvement.