Ohio State football vs. Notre Dame: Defensive grades

The Ohio State football team survived a very tough game against Notre Dame on Saturday night. They won 21-10 in a game that showcased the new defense for the first time. In fact, the defense was the story for the Buckeyes, not allowing a single point in the second half.

If the defense can play like this all season long, the Buckeyes are going to be hard to beat. That’s even true if the offense isn’t its best like last night. All three levels of the defense played well last night. Here are some grades for last night’s defense.

Even though the Ohio State football team only tallied 3 sacks, they created plenty of havoc up front. Notre Dame was held to just 76 yards on 30 carries, which was good enough for only 2,5 yards a carry. They owned the line of scrimmage all game long, which is something they struggled with last year.

Mike Hall was the standout performer on the defensive line. Hall had four tackles, two tackles for loss, and a sack. He showed up early and often in this game. Hall was not someone I had pegged as making an impact on the defensive line. Yet, he looked like the best lineman out there.

The linebackers were not consistent last year and struggled in big spots. That was certainly not the case against Notre Dame on Saturday night. Steele Chambers and Tommy Eichenberg played the majority of the snaps at linebacker and did a phenomenal job.

Eichenberg was the standout on the entire defense, recording 9 tackles, 3 tackles for loss, and 2 sacks. He was flying all over the field all night long. We’d heard he’d had a great camp and he took that play and translated it into a great performance on opening night.

This is the unit that played the worst on Saturday night. That doesn’t mean they were bad at all though. In fact, they were quite good. Notre Dame only managed 177 yards passing in this game. 54 of those were on the very first play from scrimmage.

After that first play, the Buckeye defense settled down and was able to focus. The secondary didn’t allow a passing touchdown either. Lathan Ransom was the standout in this group, recording 7 tackles. His play was especially impressive considering he suffered a broken leg in gruesome fashion in the Rose Bowl.

The defense is the reason why the Ohio State football season finally beat a marquee non-conference opponent at home and they start their season 1-0. If this side of the ball can keep playing at this high level, they could be the favorites to win the national championship.