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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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With 2 weeks devoted to addressing the pass defense, the lack of changes in my mind is staggering. Urban addressed it quite a few times. The coordinators are afraid of giving up a big play, it's obvious. Our talent is superior to every team we play this year. Any other team would kill to have our starting corners. The D line is the obvious strength of this team but can easily be neutralized by the lack of press coverage. The OSU defense hasn't focused on a scheme where it's identity has revolved around press coverage in quite some time. The idea is to develop a defense that is successful in multiple schemes but your primary identity should match your individual units strengths. Roby excels in run support and in press coverage but if you continually back him off the LOS, you aren't playing to his strength. If you play him in man coverage but only rush 3, you aren't working to his strength either. CAN IT REALLY BE THAT HARD TO MAKE AN ADJUSTMENT, ONLY IF IT'S JUST FOR A COUPLE SERIES TO START A GAME. This bend and break defense really isn't that fun to watch because we let the opposing offense do what it wants. Seriously just get after the QB I'm tired of seeing QB's that I've never heard of have some of their best games against our weak scheme.
 
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I went with coaching, not only is there a problem with the schemes, but proper tackling has hurt us as well. There also has been a lack of personnel recruited the last 4 years. Here are links to the last 4 recruiting classes, note how many DBs, and LBs are out hurt, or no longer with the team at all.

http://ohiostate.scout.com/a.z?s=145&p=9&c=8&toinid=687&yr=2010

http://ohiostate.scout.com/a.z?s=145&p=9&c=8&toinid=687&yr=2011

http://ohiostate.scout.com/a.z?s=145&p=9&c=8&toinid=687&yr=2012

http://ohiostate.scout.com/a.z?s=145&p=9&c=8&toinid=687&yr=2013
 
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It seems we have chosen to play the soft zone,,bend but don't break..to play that way One, you need to tackle, Two,no big play,Three,capitalize on Turnovers(seethe Bears). When the Bears aren't tackling, getting a pass rush. they look putrid. Our d Line needs to disrupt the three step drop by pressure in the middle and deflecting passes.More Blitzing in the 1 and 2 gaps..instant pressure on short drops.
 
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Talent differential is large when you compare a linebacking crew of Hawk/Schlegal/Carpenter vs. Shazier/Grant/Perry. We've always had great DL and secondary players but traditionally strong OSU defenses are known for their LBers. Outside of Shazier, we are just not as instinctively as we should be on D.

Still have trust in Fickell to develop the young players. He turned Sabino and Boren into excellent LBers by the end of the season, and I'm sure he'll do the same with Grant and Perry.
 
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JXC said:
Hmmm...seems to me that the defense has been good enough to win us 19 games in a row. If it's good enough to win us 20, then I won't have any issues at that point.

Beat Penn State!
Click to expand...
Just stop. That's the same logic that excused poor offense during JT's reign. 9-1 over tsun, three nc appearances with one NC while dominating the B1G for ten years. Is that what you want? IS IT?!!! :shake:
 
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I think it's both. There has been attrition on the defensive side of the ball that you can't help. There are a lot of players who have to play right now who wouldn't have seen the 2 deep in say, 2009. Still, some of the problem falls on the coaches. They're just not getting through to the players can't seem to come up with consistent calls throughout the game or even certain drives.

Even if the coaches can get on the same page, it's going to take a few more years to build up quality depth at all 3 levels. Unless a few freshman really step up to end this year into the beginning of next, I think we'll still see a lot of the same.
 
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JXC said:
Hmmm...seems to me that the defense has been good enough to win us 19 games in a row. If it's good enough to win us 20, then I won't have any issues at that point.

Beat Penn State!
Click to expand...

The offense has been good enough to win many of those games. I have been willing to overlook the defense for awhile until we started letting bottom-tier offenses look like Oregon. If any defense would have neutralized our offense to any extent this season, there would be no win streak in tact.
 
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I voted for "Neither - BIG offenses are unstoppable". Offenses in todays games are all "Monkey see -monkey do" Everyone is a copy cat. You have the spread, the pistol, the wildcat, the I formation and it goes on and on. Look at your scores in the BIG this week, especially Michigan and Indiana, Wisconsin and Illinois. And who would have thought Clemson would lose by as much as they did, especially at home. 3 weeks ago I never thought Indiana would roll over Penn state in there game. My goodness defenses don't even have time to catch their breath.

I just can't see putting the blame on most of the categories listed. I may have leaned to voting "substandard"
but then again I thought that the BIG is not as strong as it use to be, and we are having a hard time getting
back to what we were about along time ago. Yes talent and coaching schemes are a big mesh and that only
happens once in a blue moon. Firing Luke Fickell would be a mistake. We never thought like that last year
when we had such a good D-line. But now we have a lot of holes to fill - especially at the linebackers position.
Our D-Line is coming along with the new positions we have to fill.

When I watched Iowa come out with seven on the O-Line and using 3 tight ends, I had a feeling it was going to be a long day for us. And the days will be getting even longer with Penn State coming in, going on the road to Illinois & Purdue. And God only knows what Illinois will be throwing at us before our game with the Tsun. And I don't even want to go there right now.

Three months ago I thought our defensive strength would really be in the secondary but then after seeing how we were exposed in the Wisconsin & Norhtwestern games I began to be very concerned. Braynt is gone and Roby is beside himself right now. Maybe coach Urban can pull a rabbit out of his hat and come up with some true leadership in the next 6 games. Right now the BIG offenses are unstoppable and they are coming our way and it up to the players and coaches to find a way to de-rail them.
 
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I voted for scheme/coaching with an emphasis on pass coverage or lack there of. The DBs are providing a huge cushion on the recievers. Also... TE's were getting behind our coverage!! That should not happen. When they're in a three TE formation.. should not the DB's take on covering them? Their TEs were getting wide open.

I think the D line is doing fine. Vrabes is the man!

But what is up with Wither's DB philosophy? I am not piling all the blame on Fickell here.
 
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