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What's Wrong With the 2013 Defense?

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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
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buckeyebri said:
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?
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Teams like Wisky and Sparty know that they can't get elite talent, so they tend to pick a scheme and then recruit kids to play that scheme. Ohio State gets elite talent and then hopes that those kids can be coached into the scheme. The problem results when "highly rated recruits" don't become "elite talents" at the college level.

Good example: Chris Borland (Wisky) and Max Bullough (Sparty) don't fit the athletic profile of an Ohio State middle linebacker; Curtis Grant does. Borland and Bullough are great in their respective schemes, while Grant is a bust because his athletic ability hasn't translated into talent.

But given a choice, a coach will always go for a Curtis Grant over a Chris Borland, because you can't teach athletic ability. The key to recruiting - and what Urban Meyer WILL do - is make sure that you have four or five Curtis Grants on the roster at any given time, so that if two or three of them bust out, you still are left with a couple of kids who can play. Right now, it's Curtis Grant or bust ... which is really the same thing.
 
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strohs said:
Coaching can make up for a lack of talent by making sure the schemes are appropriate and players understand their responsibility on the field. I don't see that happening in the secondary at all.
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What scheme would be "appropriate" for Armani Reeves, Pitt Brown, C.J. Barnett, and Tyvis Powell, who were on the field together for much of the second half?
 
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We've seen Vonn Bell at Safety. Check out the ends of PSU and Indiana games. Nothing against him, but ... like Williams and Grant... I can see why Brown is ahead of him.
It's far from an ideal situation right now.
The only bright spot I've seen regarding the back 7 in the last few weeks is Burrows holding up well when he came in for Doran.
 
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Some of the secondary personnel decisions are boggling. I'm all for playing upperclassmen if they deserve it, but when you see play after play of someone getting exposed it's a problem.

On another note, ask yourself this question. Let me first start by saying I am not ripping on anyone rather just asking a question. You can't convince me that Vonn Bell, Cam Burrows, Eli Apple, Mike Mitchell, Trey Johnson, Josh Perry, Tyvis Powell, Damon Webb, etc etc etc dont have enough talent to be elite....but do you trust the current defensive staff to take them to their peak potential?
 
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I know during the Tebow years, the defense at Florida wasn't anything like this. Utah it was bad.

Can't remember the defense during Urban's final year at UF.

I just hope everything gets shored up, because if it doesn't, it's hard to build a sustaining program unless you decide to just try to win shootouts.
 
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LordJeffBuck said:
Teams like Wisky and Sparty know that they can't get elite talent, so they tend to pick a scheme and then recruit kids to play that scheme. Ohio State gets elite talent and then hopes that those kids can be coached into the scheme. The problem results when "highly rated recruits" don't become "elite talents" at the college level.

Good example: Chris Borland (Wisky) and Max Bullough (Sparty) don't fit the athletic profile of an Ohio State middle linebacker; Curtis Grant does. Borland and Bullough are great in their respective schemes, while Grant is a bust because his athletic ability hasn't translated into talent.

But given a choice, a coach will always go for a Curtis Grant over a Chris Borland, because you can't teach athletic ability. The key to recruiting - and what Urban Meyer WILL do - is make sure that you have four or five Curtis Grants on the roster at any given time, so that if two or three of them bust out, you still are left with a couple of kids who can play. Right now, it's Curtis Grant or bust ... which is really the same thing.
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Your point on athletic kids is the heart of the matter. I think it was last year that Urban said that you get good production out of 50% of the kids you recruit. When you add that injuries, transfers, recruiting misses, recruiting losses, the toll that tatgate had on recruiting a few years ago and even the loss of 3 scholarships for the past 3 years- you end up in the situation we are in right now.
 
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LordJeffBuck said:
Teams like Wisky and Sparty know that they can't get elite talent, so they tend to pick a scheme and then recruit kids to play that scheme. Ohio State gets elite talent and then hopes that those kids can be coached into the scheme. The problem results when "highly rated recruits" don't become "elite talents" at the college level.

Good example: Chris Borland (Wisky) and Max Bullough (Sparty) don't fit the athletic profile of an Ohio State middle linebacker; Curtis Grant does. Borland and Bullough are great in their respective schemes, while Grant is a bust because his athletic ability hasn't translated into talent.

But given a choice, a coach will always go for a Curtis Grant over a Chris Borland, because you can't teach athletic ability. The key to recruiting - and what Urban Meyer WILL do - is make sure that you have four or five Curtis Grants on the roster at any given time, so that if two or three of them bust out, you still are left with a couple of kids who can play. Right now, it's Curtis Grant or bust ... which is really the same thing.
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sflbuck said:
Your point on athletic kids is the heart of the matter. I think it was last year that Urban said that you get good production out of 50% of the kids you recruit. When you add that injuries, transfers, recruiting misses, recruiting losses, the toll that tatgate had on recruiting a few years ago and even the loss of 3 scholarships for the past 3 years- you end up in the situation we are in right now.
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I know it takes time to build up depth but just looking at the guys who are committed/consider, we might end up with only 2 true LBs out of this current recruiting class because the others might grow into DEs. Looking by looking at the amount we've offered its pretty clear that Urban thinks the LB arent the most pressing need ranking 3rd or 4th behind DB's and OL...Give what UF said about the LBs in the last 2 recruiting classes I would think this would be a higher priority because it usually take a year or two to develop, no matter how many future Big Katz we think we recruit.

i'm just looking at this from a numbers game, i know we're scholarship limited this year and you cant bring in 6 LBs but given the play it might be worth it to sacrifice some "pivot" athletes given we dont even know what 3/4ths of the freshman class can do....

SFL - UF or Bucks22 said it last year we were recruiting athletes to play LB where as before we were recruiting LBs who were good athletes..
 
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buckeyesin07 said:
Didn't see this elsewhere, and I didn't know where else to put it, but in the last four games, the OSU defense has given up the following number of points in the fourth quarter:

Illinois: 14
Indiana: 14
Michigan: 20
Michigan St.: 14

Pretty appalling.
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This is not solely the reason for our struggles obviously, but as long as we're dissecting everything including scheme and philosophy, here's an article from The Ozone describing our co-DC Withers:

But Withers was not without his criticism in Chapel Hill. The Heels dropped to 30th in total defense in 2010 and 40th in 2011. They still posted 19 interceptions a year ago—11th most in the country—but there was some critique over the way he handled late-game situations.

“Probably the biggest criticism UNC fans had with Withers over the years was his propensity late in games to go to an NFL-style 'prevent' defense,” Powell said.

“Which a few opposing teams nickeled-and-dimed with screen passes and short passes to great success at crucial times.”

In 2009, Carolina blew a 24-6 lead over Florida State in the second half by allowing the Seminoles to outscore them 24-3 over the final quarter and a half. They also blew second-half leads against N.C. State in 2009 and 2010, but Withers will not be alone in coaching Ohio State’s defense.
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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.
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Sure, 3/4's of the Big Ten teams and probably 3/4 of FBS schools. These guys weren't bad "talents" when they got here.
 
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