Matt Tamanini
Guest
I would rather Ohio State have a dominant defense and inconsistent offense than the other way around
Matt Tamanini via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK
I know that might be blasphemous, but it’s true.
It goes without saying that I would prefer that the team that I root for is dominant on both sides of the football, but it seems that my beloved Ohio State Buckeyes have somehow fallen into a pattern of being borderline unstoppable on one side of the ball while being spotty at best on the other for most of the past half-decade. Primarily, that has been an offensive juggernaut that can score at will while the team’s defense tries to hold on long enough for the other team to screw up.
That is not the case this year. While the 2023 Ohio State offense is not nearly as inconsistent and incontinent as some of the recent defensive units, it is not yet living up to the expectations set by the current defense, or recent offenses. But you know what? That’s okay. Because the defensive is so markedly better than other recent iterations, the Buckeye offense doesn’t need to lead the nation in scoring to have any chance of achieving its goals.
We’ve seen how that script goes, and it usually ends in frustration and disappointment. So, if you are forcing me to pick whether I would want my favorite team to be dominant on offense and struggle on defense, or converse, I’m choosing a lights-out, shutdown, impose-your-will, don’t-bend-or-break defense every single time.
I know that those types of teams aren’t nearly as fun or sexy as the 50-points-per-game squads that we have grown accustomed to during the first four years of Ryan Day’s tenure, but where did that get us?
Obviously, seeing offenses led by C.J. Stroud, Justin Fields, and the late, great Dwayne Haskins was thrilling and led to a ton of wins, and I will cherish the memories of those teams as long as my already feeble mind retains them, but the Buckeyes haven’t won a national title since the 2014 season and have lost to their rivals each of the last two Novembers. Don’t get me wrong, I love the wins and recognize that no program is going to be perfect every single year, but to be honest, as a Buckeye fan, I expect more, and I think Jim Knowles’ resurgent Silver Bullets might be the way that we get it.
Take this discussion outside of the confines of this year’s particular team. In college football, the more explosive and prolific your offense is, it can actually hurt your defense, especially if they are already struggling to keep up. If an offense routinely scores on two to five-play drives that minimizes the opportunity for the D to catch its collective breath and reassess what isn’t working.
But it doesn’t really work the same in the converse. The way you win in football is by scoring the most points, and while you can obviously score on defense and special teams, the best way to score — unless you are Iowa — is on offense. Therefore, if a defense is regularly forcing three-and-outs, that means that the offense has even more opportunities to score. So, even if it is not exactly hitting on all cylinders, the more possessions that the offense can have, the better chances it has to score.
When you couple that with a defense that is keeping opponents out of the end zone, you get a pretty good recipe for success, and that’s exactly what I think we are looking at with the 2023 version of the Ohio State football team.
I know that this isn’t exactly groundbreaking, expert-level football analysis, but I do think that it is important to remember that the way that Ohio State has won games in recent years not only isn’t the only way to do it, but probably isn’t even be the best way to do it.
So, while I will undoubtedly continue to scream at Ryan Day when he calls a stretch run into the boundary, and trust that the magic and science of television technology communicate my frustration to him in real-time, and I will continue to hope that the Kyle McCord that we see in second halves somehow becomes the Kyle McCord that we see all game long, I am comforted in knowing that team that I love has figured out an equation that not only has worked so far this season, but could end up working all the way to a national title.
Continue reading...
Matt Tamanini via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK
I know that might be blasphemous, but it’s true.
It goes without saying that I would prefer that the team that I root for is dominant on both sides of the football, but it seems that my beloved Ohio State Buckeyes have somehow fallen into a pattern of being borderline unstoppable on one side of the ball while being spotty at best on the other for most of the past half-decade. Primarily, that has been an offensive juggernaut that can score at will while the team’s defense tries to hold on long enough for the other team to screw up.
That is not the case this year. While the 2023 Ohio State offense is not nearly as inconsistent and incontinent as some of the recent defensive units, it is not yet living up to the expectations set by the current defense, or recent offenses. But you know what? That’s okay. Because the defensive is so markedly better than other recent iterations, the Buckeye offense doesn’t need to lead the nation in scoring to have any chance of achieving its goals.
We’ve seen how that script goes, and it usually ends in frustration and disappointment. So, if you are forcing me to pick whether I would want my favorite team to be dominant on offense and struggle on defense, or converse, I’m choosing a lights-out, shutdown, impose-your-will, don’t-bend-or-break defense every single time.
I know that those types of teams aren’t nearly as fun or sexy as the 50-points-per-game squads that we have grown accustomed to during the first four years of Ryan Day’s tenure, but where did that get us?
Obviously, seeing offenses led by C.J. Stroud, Justin Fields, and the late, great Dwayne Haskins was thrilling and led to a ton of wins, and I will cherish the memories of those teams as long as my already feeble mind retains them, but the Buckeyes haven’t won a national title since the 2014 season and have lost to their rivals each of the last two Novembers. Don’t get me wrong, I love the wins and recognize that no program is going to be perfect every single year, but to be honest, as a Buckeye fan, I expect more, and I think Jim Knowles’ resurgent Silver Bullets might be the way that we get it.
Take this discussion outside of the confines of this year’s particular team. In college football, the more explosive and prolific your offense is, it can actually hurt your defense, especially if they are already struggling to keep up. If an offense routinely scores on two to five-play drives that minimizes the opportunity for the D to catch its collective breath and reassess what isn’t working.
But it doesn’t really work the same in the converse. The way you win in football is by scoring the most points, and while you can obviously score on defense and special teams, the best way to score — unless you are Iowa — is on offense. Therefore, if a defense is regularly forcing three-and-outs, that means that the offense has even more opportunities to score. So, even if it is not exactly hitting on all cylinders, the more possessions that the offense can have, the better chances it has to score.
When you couple that with a defense that is keeping opponents out of the end zone, you get a pretty good recipe for success, and that’s exactly what I think we are looking at with the 2023 version of the Ohio State football team.
I know that this isn’t exactly groundbreaking, expert-level football analysis, but I do think that it is important to remember that the way that Ohio State has won games in recent years not only isn’t the only way to do it, but probably isn’t even be the best way to do it.
So, while I will undoubtedly continue to scream at Ryan Day when he calls a stretch run into the boundary, and trust that the magic and science of television technology communicate my frustration to him in real-time, and I will continue to hope that the Kyle McCord that we see in second halves somehow becomes the Kyle McCord that we see all game long, I am comforted in knowing that team that I love has figured out an equation that not only has worked so far this season, but could end up working all the way to a national title.
Continue reading...