• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

What's Wrong With the 2013 Defense?

Jump to latest Follow Reply

What's Wrong With the 2013 Defense?

  • Talent / Players

    Votes: 29 11.8%

  • Scheme / Coaching

    Votes: 127 51.8%

  • Both are substandard

    Votes: 71 29.0%

  • Neither - B1G offenses are unstoppable

    Votes: 10 4.1%

  • I don't care - just fire Fickell!

    Votes: 8 3.3%
  • Total voters
    245
Sort by date Sort by votes
pnuts34 said:
Lordjeffbuck, I like your list and agree with a bulk of it, but its hard to put a label on most of the 2012 class since they're not even done playing their 2nd years, so to me they all should be unknowns as well. Some have played better than others, but none to the point where they're huge factors, outside of spence, washington and schutt.
And though we all habe an infatuation with joey bosa, and he may be a future all American, he's not a star just yet, he's barely played a half of an entire college
season.
And taosman, what you stated about whiting could be true, but the same logic could be used for dorian bell and jeremy cash. And cash would be needed the most of the 3 at this point to shore up our putrid secondary.
Click to expand...

Cash and Ron Tanner were rated both 3 star and what has Tanner done? He can't beat out Brown. Brown, I though played decently Saturday.
Dorian Bell was a complete disaster. He came with problems and never got close to playing.
Whiting was second team and pushing for playing time. He would be a starter with solid play on this defense. Maybe even last year he would have started.
I actually believe LBer is a bigger problem. Perry is slowly getting better. But he's still just a young guy. He still looks very raw.
But maybe if we had a decent pass rush it would cover a wealth of sins on this defense. Maybe we see a better pass rush against PSU this Saturday night. That would make things much easier for this defense.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
kujirakira said:
I doubt very many players are recruited to be 1-dimensional liabilities.
Speaking of Spence covering a TE - I almost wonder if the repeated use of a DE in coverage isn't b/c the defensive staff have realized how weak the LBs are in coverage; thus continually dropping Spence into coverage as a move of desperation in an attempt to help shore up that weakness.
Click to expand...
I don't think this is a new phenomenon with the defense this year. I seem to recall we have done the DE dropoff for a couple of years. I know some of the pro defenses like this as well.

One of the things I would like to see more of with the cushion that we are giving and the three step drop and quick throws would be the Dline getting their paws up and potentially swatting a few passes down or deflecting them for potential INTs. Hell the way the guys are getting held most times, they should be getting their arms up just to expose the holding.
 
Upvote 0
Taosman said:
Cash and Ron Tanner were rated both 3 star and what has Tanner done? He can't beat out Brown. Brown, I though played decently Saturday.
Dorian Bell was a complete disaster. He came with problems and never got close to playing.
Whiting was second team and pushing for playing time. He would be a starter with solid play on this defense. Maybe even last year he would have started.
I actually believe LBer is a bigger problem. Perry is slowly getting better. But he's still just a young guy. He still looks very raw.
But maybe if we had a decent pass rush it would cover a wealth of sins on this defense. Maybe we see a better pass rush against PSU this Saturday night. That would make things much easier for this defense.
Click to expand...

I never mentioned tanner, he to this point is just used for depth and special teams. But cash leads a D1 team in tackles, and that wouLd greatly help us right now. And as far as bell, you're forgetting that he was pushing for PT in his redshirt soph year before he was kicked out. He had 6tckles and 1sack in the spring game before he was kicked out. I don't remember whiting ever pushing for PT like that.


http://www.thebuckeyebattlecry.com/2011/04/spring-game-players-to-watch-on-defense/#more-14313
 
Upvote 0
Just saw where Vrable succinctly explained that up front "we got the shit kicked out of us." (link) Really, that was true in the first half. Despite the fact that the scheme is not aggressive enough, the front 7 played much softer against the run than usual. We let them stay in 3rd and short far too often, which was extremely problematic. I don't know if it gives me any real boost of confidence to say Iowa was an anomaly because we usually stuff the run though. Point is we have faced MUCH better rushing attacks and did not play so piss poor, so I really think the play of the DL was an exception. That being said, there has to be improvement everywhere.
 
Upvote 0
RB07OSU said:
Just saw where Vrable succinctly explained that up front "we got the [Mark May] kicked out of us." (link) Really, that was true in the first half. Despite the fact that the scheme is not aggressive enough, the front 7 played much softer against the run than usual. We let them stay in 3rd and short far too often, which was extremely problematic. I don't know if it gives me any real boost of confidence to say Iowa was an anomaly because we usually stuff the run though. Point is we have faced MUCH better rushing attacks and did not play so piss poor, so I really think the play of the DL was an exception. That being said, there has to be improvement everywhere.
Click to expand...

I think that was mostly a consequence of the scheme and matchups.
They were playing with 5 OL, 3 TEs, and a huge RB -- just 1 WR, and we'd still line up with 4 DBs on the field.
I think normally you'd switch to a 4-4 front at that point, but realistically whose going to come in and be the 4th LB? Do we even have a 4th LB?
Wherever they went, they just flat out-numbered us... it looked like a convoy.
 
Upvote 0
I want to see this defense playing more press coverage like I would have wanted to see Steve Bellisari drop back to pass 40 times a game.

Look at how many players are no longer with the team from the recruiting classes that should be providing the senior and junior leadership on that side of the ball. There isn't a program in the country that can whiff on that many scholarships and not have it result in talent issues. I think people get too tied up in the recruiting hype and just assume that the talent is there.
 
Upvote 0
LJB, could you edit the poll and change "Talent / Players" to "Talent / Youth?"

Semantics, but I don't think OSU's D lacks talent. What OSU's D lacks is veteran players, which probably explains why UFM took leadership development to the nth degree this past summer. That's also why I don't think it can be entirely pinned on "Coaches / Scheme." This staff didn't get stupid because Simon, Hankins, Williams, and Boren graduated. It doesn't matter what the scheme is if the players can't execute it.

As they say, the best thing about freshmen is they'll become sophomores.
 
Upvote 0
Taosman said:
Are we supposed to be impressed that Cash is leading Duke in tackles?
Duke does have a fine basketball program.
Click to expand...


He's doing a much better job at S at a basketball school than most of our DBS at our football school... Just saying
I'd much rather have him now as a S than Pitt brown, or Tanner, or even tyvis powell.
 
Upvote 0
When Tressel was here, great defense...vanilla offense. It's just the opposite now.
I think it is absolutely 100% COACHING/SCHEME. I actually think the overall talent level is better now.

Imagine this offense with a Tressel regime defense.

Are any of those coaches available....or going to be available?
 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top