2013 tOSU Defense Discussion

[HorseshoeFetish]

Dontre plays Bell and Mitchell don't..maybe next year

Crazy, most guys just ride a stationary bike. Mike should! IMO we're going to need a qualified bell ringer next year.

 

[Fungo Squiggly]

Yikes. With the number of blown coverages happening with the starters out there, go ahead and move me from " quite concerned" to " really, very much concerned" in regards to the pass defense.

I don't know if it is blown coverages by the DBs, poor calls by the coaches, or great route combos by the opposition, but there have been way too many receivers running free downfield over the last couple years.

 

[bukIpower]

Our defensive line needs to finish plays. How many times do we have the qb wrapped up but onlu see his shrug off tacklers and avoid the sack. I thought the overall pressure was ok but we lost at least 3 mpre sacks by missed tackles. They were holding spence all night as well but ii think we still don't bring enough heat and with the way our coverage is I don't blame them. Still though with more pressure you limit the time ur in coverage as well as the type of pass.

I honestly think at this point its not the coaches but the players. The backers have been a nice surprise and the dline has been a force but the secondary has really struggled the last two years. The coach and the personnel are the same in these last two years so what gives? I personally feel we don't have the size or ability right now. Roby does but who knows were his head is right now. To me the struggles have always been at saftey and I think once we get longer and bigger at saftey we will better handle what we want to do.

What's odd is teams are avoiding grant and attacking robey. Robey not playing well is really hurting us. If he pulls it together our secondary will be fine.

 

[Buckeye86]

Yikes. With the number of blown coverages happening with the starters out there, go ahead and move me from " quite concerned" to " really, very much concerned" in regards to the pass defense.

I don't know if it is blown coverages by the DBs, poor calls by the coaches, or great route combos by the opposition, but there have been way too many receivers running free downfield over the last couple years.

The LBs not getting to the right spots (deep enough, primarily) in their zone coverage is a huge part of the problem.

Also, it's not enough to just get there, they need to be aware of what's going on around them as well (keep their head on a swivel).

Perry and Grant have both been a major weakness in pass coverage thus far because of this.

Edit: for the record, I disagree with buckIpower- it's not the secondary, it's the LBs.

In their defense, though, it's understandable that some inexperienced LBs were focussing more on stopping the run than pass coverage.

In fact, that was pretty obviously the plan.

If Roby didn't have a bad game it wouldn't have been as bad, obviously.

 

[Taosman]

LBers lost in pass coverage. Yea. But this is correctable with coaching.
Wiscy has excellent D line and LBers but secondary issues. Uh Oh. That means passing teams will give them fits.
Having watched several SEC games this season I see a lot of ranked SEC teams with problems of youth on defense(LSU, Georgia, A&M) so it's not like we are the only ones having youth on defense issues. But if you don't have quality depth on defense then your not going to fix it this season.
The secondary has been fine overall. D. Grant has played lights out, maybe better than Robey even. Robey had a tough time with Abberdarus but we won't be seeing him again.
Both safeties have been fine. Bryant was a leader but we have guys that at least can play the position well if not be the same leader.
With Washington back for the season hopefully that will help the defense as a whole. But I'm not convinced Washington is 100%.
Bottom line is the defense is good enough to help the team win the BIG Ten.

 

[ShowMeBuck]

LBers lost in pass coverage. Yea. But this is correctable with coaching.
Wiscy has excellent D line and LBers but secondary issues. Uh Oh. That means passing teams will give them fits.
Having watched several SEC games this season I see a lot of ranked SEC teams with problems of youth on defense(LSU, Georgia, A&M) so it's not like we are the only ones having youth on defense issues. But if you don't have quality depth on defense then your not going to fix it this season.
The secondary has been fine overall. D. Grant has played lights out, maybe better than Robey even. Robey had a tough time with Abberdarus but we won't be seeing him again.
Both safeties have been fine. Bryant was a leader but we have guys that at least can play the position well if not be the same leader.
With Washington back for the season hopefully that will help the defense as a whole. But I'm not convinced Washington is 100%.
Bottom line is the defense is good enough to help the team win the BIG Ten.

because it's the B1G Ten.

 

[Taosman]

And Wiscy was holding all night. How many times did we see a Wiscy offensive lineman "ride" or hook a defensive lineman for the length of the play. Did we even get 2 holding calls? I'm not sure. Then you see Robey get called on a "phantom" interference call? The calls were all over the place in judgment.

 

[AuTX Buckeye]

And Wiscy was holding all night. How many times did we see a Wiscy offensive lineman "ride" or hook a defensive lineman for the length of the play. Did we even get 2 holding calls? I'm not sure. Then you see Robey get called on a "phantom" interference call? The calls were all over the place in judgment.

Roby could have been called for PI on almost every pass play, he was cleary grabbing/holding/pulling the jersey on almost every play. they just decided to call that one... Watching Roby play and not get called reminded me of the B1G basketball refs letting muggings happen without a foul called.

 

[buxfan4life]

Roby could have been called for PI on almost every pass play, he was cleary grabbing/holding/pulling the jersey on almost every play. they just decided to call that one... Watching Roby play and not get called reminded me of the B1G basketball refs letting muggings happen without a foul called.

This. Roby did not look like an AA DB Saturday night, but it seems like he played hurt.

I think that the youth and inexperience on the D right now is the problem. Hopefully they just get better every game and start peaking around the end of the season.

 

[Bill Lucas]

Dontre plays Bell and Mitchell don't..maybe next year

I'm pretty sure Bell has already seen time on the field.

 

[ArmyVet83]

While the defense needs some work (linebackers, pass rush, different looks and schemes, etc.), it isn't terrible. Granted it's not a Silver Bullet defense, but it is young and a serviceable defense. With that being said, I think there are SOME posters that don't see what the Buckeye's defense did Saturday night against the Badgers.

1. The Buckeyes were dead set on stopping the Badger running game. They accomplished that to the tune of 104 yards. By stopping the run game, it took Wisky out of their comfort zone. Running the ball.

2. While Abbrederis had a game of his college career, by the way this guy is going be a Pro Bowler barring major injury, Stave had 88 yards passing to everyone else on the Badgers. Yes Roby got eaten alive but the Buckeyes D took the running backs out of the passing game as well which again is the key component of Wisky's offense.

3. While Ohio State's offense wasn't as good as they had been in their previous 4 games, they ran a balanced offensive attack against Wisky. In other words they did what they planned to do offensively with Miller at QB. While we will never know, I really would have loved to seen more of Jordan Hall in that game. He has earned it. With Hall involved it would have taken some of the heat off of Miller and Hyde.

Now on to Northwestern. Should be a great game.

 

[Bill Lucas]

Roby could have been called for PI on almost every pass play, he was cleary grabbing/holding/pulling the jersey on almost every play. they just decided to call that one... Watching Roby play and not get called reminded me of the B1G basketball refs letting muggings happen without a foul called.

I agree with this. There was an incompletion in the end zone in the second corner and Roby just reached out and grabbed the receiver on the play.

Still, he deserves a pass. He wasn't the same after he injured his back early in the game.

 

[AuTX Buckeye]

So this is just an arm chair observation, from a guy who has never played or coached.

On the defense in general:
I think part of the problem is this whole CO-DC BS. I know one guy makes the calls on game day and they both game plan but it looks to me like the Withers/Fickell partnership isn't working out. I don't know if Withers is more conservative on D or what, but clearly there isn't a mesh. Now everyone will say that with Heacock/Fickell worked great but I think in that case you have Heacock making the calls and he had a ton more seniority and was some what of a mentor to Fickell.

On LBs:
Fickell has proven himself to be a very good LB coach in the past, so that comes down to 2 things for me. He's either too busy game planning/thinking about game day calls or the LBs are either too raw, not as talented as we thought, or its not clicking. When Boren swapped positions last year and became our best all around backer, it was great but very scary. Has the "type" of LB we recruit changes that much over the years?

My gut says something will change this off-season. I think one way or another we'll have only 1 DC next year.

 

[kippy1040]

My concern at the beginning of the season was with the defensive front four and some of the linebackers.
I thought that most of our strength was in the secondary but since then everything has been changed.
The D-line is coming along just fine and our linebackers are improving with every game.
Now that we have lost Bryant for the season, I am pretty sure that Northwestern is going to be more than "Pass happy" after watching what Wisconsin got away with against our secondary........ I don,t know who is the coach for our secondary line but I hope he can straighten out some of the problems this week.

 

[Jaxbuck]

The LBs not getting to the right spots (deep enough, primarily) in their zone coverage is a huge part of the problem.

Also, it's not enough to just get there, they need to be aware of what's going on around them as well (keep their head on a swivel).

Perry and Grant have both been a major weakness in pass coverage thus far because of this.

Edit: for the record, I disagree with buckIpower- it's not the secondary, it's the LBs.

In their defense, though, it's understandable that some inexperienced LBs were focussing more on stopping the run than pass coverage.

In fact, that was pretty obviously the plan.

If Roby didn't have a bad game it wouldn't have been as bad, obviously.

I re-watched the first half last night.

I couldn't agree more with this assessment.