• 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
When you blitz and still fail to get consistent pressure on the QB like Ohio State has done for the past two weeks that seems like a schematic problem to me.

Bad blitz schemes plus weaknesses from a player perspective in the back 7 has been the major problem, in my opinion.
 
Upvote 0
@marcushartman: OSU has allowed 8 300-yard passing games past 2 years after allowing 12 in previous 11 seasons



Now I know with our offense we were in games where the opposing team was passing more late in the game due to being down early, and also the different schemes run by offenses current day, but that should not account for having basically 4 times as many games per season as the previous 11 seasons.
 
Upvote 0
My biggest issue is there has been almost no sustained improvement over the season. In fact, this year, for every step forward, the defense seemed to take two steps back. After a decent defensive effort against a solid IU offense, they played one of the worst games I've ever seen an Ohio State defense play against scUM. Then followed that up by laying another egg against a mediocre sparty offense. Good defensive coaches can get something from underachieving players. Look no further than tsun. In 2010, they had an historically bad defense. They bring in Mattison, and they field a much improved defense in 2011. There's talent here. Is it up to par with what we had the previous decade? Maybe not. The safety play, and to a degree the LBs have been excruciatingly bad the last two years. But you cannot convince me the talent level is THIS bad. Every great offense is going to have hiccup games. You should be able to rely on an Ohio State defense to hold a mediocre sparty offense.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
NFBuck said:
My biggest issue is there has been almost no sustained improvement over the season. In fact, this year, for every step forward, the defense seemed to take two steps back. After a decent defensive effort against a solid IU offense, they played one of the worst games I've ever seen an Ohio State defense play against scUM. Then followed that up by laying another egg against a mediocre sparty offense. Good defensive coaches can get something from underachieving players. Look no further than tsun. In 2010, they had an historically bad defense. They bring in Mattison, and they field a much improved defense in 2011. There's talent here. Is it up to par with what we had the previous decade? Maybe not. The safety play, and to a degree the LBs have been excruciatingly bad the last two years. But you cannot convince me the talent level is THIS bad. Every great offense is going to have hiccup games. You should be able to rely on an Ohio State defense to hold a mediocre sparty offense.
Click to expand...

I don't think our offense had a "hiccup" as much as they ran into the top-ranked defense in the country. Sparty is as advertised on that side of the ball.

As for our defense, the most frustrating part is they got worse as the season progressed. Look at what scUM and Sparty did the weeks before they played us and the results are glaring. I've always believed coaches coach and players play - it is easy to just blame the coach - but for whatever reason our defense seems to be less than the sum of its parts. As such, something has to change.
 
Upvote 0
Jake said:
I don't think our offense had a "hiccup" as much as they ran into the top-ranked defense in the country. Sparty is as advertised on that side of the ball.
Click to expand...
That's kinda what I mean by "hiccup." Basically, that you cannot count on an offense to go out there and throw 40+ on the scoreboard every week. The defense has to be good enough to get off the field against a fairly mediocre offense in the second half of games.
 
Upvote 0
NFBuck said:
My biggest issue is there has been almost no sustained improvement over the season. In fact, this year, for every step forward, the defense seemed to take two steps back. After a decent defensive effort against a solid IU offense, they played one of the worst games I've ever seen an Ohio State defense play against scUM. Then followed that up by laying another egg against a mediocre sparty offense. Good defensive coaches can get something from underachieving players. Look no further than tsun. In 2010, they had an historically bad defense. They bring in Mattison, and they field a much improved defense in 2011. There's talent here. Is it up to par with what we had the previous decade? Maybe not. The safety play, and to a degree the LBs have been excruciatingly bad the last two years. But you cannot convince me the talent level is THIS bad. Every great offense is going to have hiccup games. You should be able to rely on an Ohio State defense to hold a mediocre sparty offense.
Click to expand...
We bring in highly recruited talent on a yearly basis and it is tough to watch the lack of development. A lot of the kids on that Sparty team weren't that highly rated, but they sure are ready to play.
 
Upvote 0
NFBuck said:
Good defensive coaches can get something from underachieving players.... The safety play, and to a degree the LBs have been excruciatingly bad the last two years. But you cannot convince me the talent level is THIS bad.
Click to expand...
I'm giving you Curtis Grant, Joshua Perry, Pitt Brown, C.J. Barnett, and Tyvis Powell. As a bonus, you can have Armani Reeves, Camren Williams, Joe Burger, Ron Tanner, Devan Bogard, and a bunch of true freshmen who aren't ready to play at this level. Can you come up with a defensive scheme that will work with those guys?

I've got some issues with the defensive philosophy - why is Noah Spence dropping into coverage, why isn't Ryan Shazier blitzing more - and I think that Luke could use a change of scenery, but at certain positions the talent level really is THIS bad.
 
Upvote 0
Defense is a UNIT..as in UNITED..never saw it this year..Some great individual talented athletes...Secondary never worked together...Fickell, Meyer and Company..The D must be reWired before next year..many return, we need a mindset change!
 
Upvote 0
LJB when you say the talent level is really that bad, how is it that teams like Wiscy and Sparty are consistently bringing in lesser rated recruits and doing what they do? How is it that guys like Reeves, Williams just aren't ready or it takes a guy like Grant so long to "get it". Is there an issue with how we evaluate talent relative to our scheme?
 
Upvote 0
LordJeffBuck said:
I'm giving you Curtis Grant, Joshua Perry, Pitt Brown, C.J. Barnett, and Tyvis Powell. As a bonus, you can have Armani Reeves, Camren Williams, Joe Burger, Ron Tanner, Devan Bogard, and a bunch of true freshmen who aren't ready to play at this level. Can you come up with a defensive scheme that will work with those guys?

I've got some issues with the defensive philosophy - why is Noah Spence dropping into coverage, why isn't Ryan Shazier blitzing more - and I think that Luke could use a change of scenery, but at certain positions the talent level really is THIS bad.
Click to expand...
Well, it certainly isn't elite, but most of those guys you listed were fairly well thought of recruits with good offer lists. Would it be THIS bad with the old defensive regime? I don't think so. I absolutely could be wrong, but the probability of that many 4 & 5 star kids being this bad seems remote. Hell, our old regime took 3* kids and made a number if them into stars...or at least better than what we're seeing right now.

I also think, as I mentioned on the last page, that the lack of an onfield "leader" is a serious issue. I think Bryant provided that somewhat, so losing him was definitely big.
 
Upvote 0
So. . I understand recruiting is a crap shoot but

how did LB recruiting strike out for almost 4 straight years.
Did the changes to Urban's philosophy of speed, speed and more speed run off guys that were sound, good but not great?

Next are just arm chair thoughts from someone who hasn't played.
It also seemed like our d-line rotation disappeared during the last few weeks.
It seems like we are playing a buncha guya out of position, DE play DT, etc to get more "speed" on the field

I know it's not all the coaches fault but you gotta find something your team does good and stick with it. . Is not like scum or sparty run an exotic offense (ie triple option or air raid). It seems like they could have just simplified to play book to find something that works
 
Upvote 0
There is no way that the defense can be this bad without it it being both the talent and coaching.

Christian Bryant was a big loss. Pitt Brown's blown coverage on the first TD was beyond painful. It's hard for me to believe that Vonn Bell would be a greater liability. I don't think it is a coincidence that the positions that seem to be the most problematic, LB and S, have been the ones that have had the most issues with transfer, injuries, recruiting losses and recruiting misses over the last few years (Cash, Tanner, Bogard, DePriest, Hicks, Bell et al).

On the other side where is the improvement in who is still here. On the OL, Warriner has taken that unit to be one of the best in the country. WR are playing better then last year. Carlos is better this year and so is Braxton. Who among the back 7 is better than last year?
 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top