When Urban Meyer was hired, I was as excited as anyone. As someone who had considered going to Cbus and assassinating Jim Bollman, I knew I would get to see dynamic offense. I had seen my fill of Dave, Dave, incomplete pass, and punt - as well as playing for FG's. The 2012 Buckeyes did not disappoint me.
However, when UFM was hired I told my buddies that we would have to win some games 40-31. I was labled a nut and clearly out of my mind. Then came Nebraska's 38 and Indiana's 49 - which admittedly made me want to crawl under a rock, but my sanity was vindicated.
The bottom line is that you generally cannot have an offense that averages 40 and a defense that averages giving up 10. If you do, they call you national champions.
The tempo of the Ohio State offense directly affects the ability of the defense. The quicker you play and the more dynamic you are, the quicker you are punting or scoring - either way you are putting your defense on the field much more than a team that does Dave, Dave, etc. A tired defense is a less effective defense. In addition, there is a psychological factor involved. When you know your offense can get a score back quickly and easily, the urgency of preventing a score is less.
As a general rule, we have to choose the dynamic, high-scoring offense or the stout defense. I'll take the former for now because I was physically sick of the latter which coupled the great defense with bland offense and an emphasis on punting.
The old way of evalutating defenses with things like scoring average, yards rushing, and yards passing allowed are out-dated. If you allow yards and points in Ohio State's present approach, but can be +1-2 per game on TO's, you will be defending good enough.
The only way you can get to that 40/10 level is if you have quality players, two deep at every defensive position. We aren't there yet, especially at LB.
