Dear Unreasonble Expectations,
What is all this talk about demoting/firing the defensive coaching staff? Have you given any thought to the fact that maybe Coach Wilson is an offensive genius and IU is actually good on offense? 27 points against MSU is an indication that IU is pretty darn good on offense (OSU only scored 17). Mr. Unreasonable Expectations, have you given thought that IU has a good short to medium passing game that takes the defensive line (a huge strength) almost completely out of the game and puts all the pressure on our LBs and DBs (the weakness)? Is it at all possible that the defense was caught in a down week after being up for two huge games? Or maybe the defensive coaches and players are still trying to adjust to a new(er) system? Could it be the high tempo offense creates more plays for the defense to be on the field? And maybe the lack of depth really hurts right now because of the high tempo offense?
I'm not saying the defense is good, good sirs, but shouldn't we relax a little bit. Things are different. People are adjusting. Players and coaches are learning. The offense is HUMMING. The Buckeyes just won MORE games than all of last year and the SAME number of games in Tressel's first year before going on to win the National Championship the following year.
Things are not perfect but they are definitely just fine in Old Columbus Town. Enjoy this team for what it is. A budding offensive juggernaut with growing pains on defense and special teams. Coach Meyer will have this team in GREAT shape heading into next year. Just let him do his thing this year and take a deep breath.
Truly yours,
Rationality
Hear, hear. Well said.
I think the biggest concern here is the number of big play touchdowns we gave up. They are a good offense, but to give up a 59 yard TD run, 76 yard TD pass and numerous 20+ yard plays just isn't good.
Greg Jennings "I put my team on my back"
49 points given up to Indiana, who hasn't won in the B1G since forever, is disturbing no matter what your expectations are. Purdont has the same type of offense, but is better at it. I, for one, will not be happy if "The Stache" leaves Cbus with a victory. Moral or otherwise.
Excellent post. So far, this year has been a lot of fun to watch.
One reason that I've not been able to fully enjoy it, though (besides me being a worrywort) isn't so much what defensive deficiencies might mean to this year. It's that I'm not sure Urbz will be able to have the defense in great shape going into next year. The Buckeyes need to groom some studs at LB overnight.
I didn't know this was a new defensive system... I love to win, but can't we be unhappy with the way the defense played? I'd like to see us win 52-10, not 52-49 and let their backup QB score 2 TD's in 3 minutes. I like 7-0, but it has been very sloppy.
I saw Armageddon in the title so I'll assume this has something to do with Bruce Willis
Dear Rationality,
I will accept nothing less than defensive domination. I am, after all, a fanatic.
Sincerely,
Earle
Sounds like you are seriously trying to defend our defense? Our defense is not good and it has been this way all season (except maybe MSU). I think it has the talent to be better but it hasn't done well lately. I think the out cry is so strong because in Columbus we have always prided ourselves on strong/physical/sure tackling defense and I'm not sure most of us have seen this consistently below average defense in our lifetime. I think it is alright to be alarmed and to voice a passionette opinion is always fair. I think that we obviously see the occasional nasty or over the line comment but you will have that. I think alot of us have seen this coming and have finally started voicing opinions and critizism towards coaches and players.
Doc: I'd never insult you because you might give me a root canal some day, but Purdon't does not run its spread better than Indy.
Statistically, Indy is 27th in total offense. FEI has Indy as the 10th best offense in the nation. In the last three weeks, Indy scored 29 at NW, 27 v. MSU, and 49 v. Ohio State.
Purdue is 77th in total offense. FEI has Purdue's offense at 104th. Purdue scored 48 v. E Ky, 54 v. CMU, and 51 against Marshall, but only 17 at ND, 13 v. Michigan, and 14 v. Wisc. They're rotating QBs are now seem to be in a total funk.
Purdue is definitely better than Indy on defense, though. However, Purdue's defense has really sturggled the last two weeks.
I'm so glad Urban has higher expectations... he's a perfectionist and will not let a subpar D bring him down. This year was Fickell's year to show what he could do...even before all the injuries the D looked bad (especially when it comes to fundamentals and penalties). I think Urban will make a major change if the D doesn't improve significantly over the 2nd half of the year.
D. Anthony
Yeah, definitely not a new defensive system. I guess the thing that eats at me the most is the complacency the defense has shown when they play with a big lead. Where is the killer instinct? Where is that intensity to take away the other team's will to continue believing they have a chance?
IU's offense is good and explosive, but 49 points to a team that hasn't won a B1G game in two years is uncalled for. If this team and program wants to get to the mountain top of college football as soon as possible, they are wasting days continuing to do the same thing that has been proven inefficient this year. The time is now for the defense to change something/anything and regain some momentum going into the biggest games of this season, as well as hopefully a title run next season.
I'm not saying Fickell needs fired, or the staff needs re-structured. I'm saying they need to start from square one in their defensive philosophy, and decide what type of defense they want to be. If that means bend but don't break, fine. If that means aggressively blitzing and confusing offenses, but giving up a big play here or there, fine. But right now it seems they are caught in the middle and can't decide which way is up.
"What we do in life echoes in eternity"
RUN_FIDO_RUN - You bring up an excellent point. The defense was not good last year, but it was overshadowed because the offense was the greater and more glaring weakness. And this year we have witnessed poor defensive play that is much more exposed due to the offense being head and shoulders better than last year.
But the question does become: will the OSU defense be better next year? Do we have ANY reason to believe it will? Think about who we lose next year from our defense: Goebel, Williams, Simon, Klein, Howard, Johnson, and possibly Hankins and Roby. What do you think? Will the defense be better next year? I have to admit, I'm worried, no cliff jumping, but I think there is cause to be concerned.
Dear Rationality,
We are 7 weeks into the football season and the secondary problems have still not been solved and we have talented players on the team. Do you personally think it is OK to give up 49 points to IU? Is it OK that we were up 18 points with 4 minutes of play left and the DEFENSE let them come within 3 points of us at the end of the game? Does that not concern you? We still have Whisky, Purdue, Penn st. and UM on the schedule. Do you realistically think things will be ok with those teams if the problems in the secondary do not get fixed? Sorry to burst your bubble but if the secondary doesnt figure it out we WILL drop a game or two down the line. We cannot continue to rely on the offense to bail the defense out week after week. Ask West Virginia how that worked out.
Sincerely,
Someone who actually cares about the defense getting back to elite
Earle, how were you able to live with half of your Ohio State defenses during the 1980s?
Sincerely,
Bo Pelini
Uggg... another thread on this?
@D. Anthony Great post.
@bhardy22132 Great post.
The poster should go back in time and tell UM that it isn't a big deal to have a terrible defense if your offense is outstanding -> RRod. I'm glad Urban isn't blinded by winning the game to see that if he don't fix the D he will be out of OSU withing 3 years.
Sincerely,
Someone who wants to win a NChamp and not settle for Rutgers being out biggest rival.
@Fido: Good stuff. I'll admit to selective memory about the 80's.
@D. Anthony when was the defense ever healthy? From my count, Bennet was out from the start and Williams was playing hurt. We don't know how long Simon was playing hurt before the news came out, and obviously I don't need to tell you about the injuries since game 1.
Furthermore, where is all of the talent that our coaching staff seems to be wasting? Because I don't see it. The only two guys that will definitely be playing on Sundays are Hankins and Roby. I love Simon to death, and he plays grown man football, but he is going to be a tweener at the next level and he may not be able to adjust to a new position. Williams has NFL talent, but he can't stay healthy enough to show it off consistently. Shazier still has to show sound fundamentals before I sign off on him as the next great thing, and I'm not sold on anyone else as of this moment. I know this is Ohio State and people are used to putting 4+ guys in the NFL in every draft, but that is not the situation we are in right now.
If the defense giving up huge plays, missing tackles, and a lot of points was a one time thing, even if that one time was Indiana, I don't think people would be so concerned. These problems have not been a one time thing, though. Our defense has consistently had these problems all season. Also, I don't think the complaints are irrational, considering our head coach, players, former players, and a former coach are saying the same exact things.
The coaches, players, and most fans hope this team can compete for a title in the next year or two. That will not happen if the defense does not improve significantly, and we have so far seen more regression than improvement.
Is a little adversity that bad? Champions are made by how they respond to adversity. All off-season Coach Meyer talked about how the offense is behind and we have no playmakers. Look at how the offense responded, Devin Smith and Corey Brown are a pretty good 1-2 punch (besides drops) and Braxton is being Braxton.
Going into the MSU game we hammered the defense and look how they responded shutting Bell and the Spartans down and contained a high powered Nebraska team.
I expect the defense to respond in these final few weeks and go back to the Silver Bullets that we are used to. I wouldn't be surprised to see a shutout or two.
I would be surprised by that.
Fido, no offense taken. My point about Purdont is this, we have had our share of problems with them and they have beaten us rather frequently lately. If we don't pull our heads out of our asses we will be 7-1 on saturday afternoon. Statistically their offense might not be better than Indy's, but they have had more success over the years.
I'm readying for that root canal as we speak ;)
The concerning thing is that the defense is significantly worse than last year, and it seems to be getting worse every week. And for the love of God, please stop telling me what a great offense Indiana has.
@jrich612... the D's health for the most part was good (or about like most teams) heading into this season. our D's been trending down for over a year now, the fundamentals are the best way to gauge the coaching and they are awful, so let's not pretend it's all about injuries and 4 star and 5 star guys being overrated. I hate suUM but do you think our D wouldn't be any better with a guy comparable to Mattison coaching our D? We have a genius coaching/calling the Offense, Urban Meyer as head coach and then there's Luke. I'm just not sure he's ready or shown himself to be worthy to play with the biggest of the big boys?
D. Anthony
Per game averages they are:
27th yards (473)
15th in passing (313)
73rd in rushing (160)
32nd in points (35.5)
It is not terrible by any means...(ok rushing is pretty bad)
http://espn.go.com/college-football/statistics/team/_/stat/total/sort/netYardsPerGame
Indiana State, UMass, and Ball State gave up fewer points against Indiana than we did. Their point total against us was a season high. Give me a break.
Dear Rationality,
Fuck You!
Sincerely, Woody Hayes
"if irony were made of strawberries, we' d all be drinking a lot of smoothies right now."
Everyone calling for the D coaches to be fired especially fickell obviously dont know much on the history of our great team. Our D has slowly got worse over the last 2 years for 1 simple reason that fickell pointed out to meyer when her first got here WE DONT HAVE ANY LB's on roster need alot more. The last 4 recrutiing classes have i think 1 starter now from any of them and the majority of them all we signed transfered or had medical issues. We have had had excellent Ds bc we had excellent LBs and losing that veteran presence at the most important position on the the field drastically impacts a D for the worse. In our D the LBs prevent the 5yd run from being 80yds and 7 yd pass from being 70yds. Without developed experienced LBs this year we will just have to suffer WINNING games by less pts Oh NO! In 2 years, when our 2012 LBs are destroying it and fickell's behind it, these so called fans calling for pink slips should be banned for being ignorant FOOLS! Go Bucks!!
@D. Anthony obviously you have a point that we can't put all of the blame on injuries and guys not turning out, because that happens to every team. However, I find your blame for lack of fundamentals on Fickell to be a bit off base. Fickell is, in addition to Co-def coordinator, the D-Line coach, correct? (perhaps he is LB, I don't remember) The position coaches should be the ones teaching the fundamentals to the players. That's why there are guys like Drayton, Smith, and Coombs to coach specific positions. This brings me to a new point that is not getting discussed nearly enough. I think you would agree that the secondary has been the most torched portion of the defense and suffers the greatest lack of fundamentals. So why is no one on the case of Coach Coombs for the secondary play? Playcalling is on Fick, but execution and fundamentals, to me, is on the position coach.
Wow, lot's of woe here. Obviously our D has problems. Lots of things said here, but there are some telling issues that really contribute to this debacle. Take a look at this: http://www.elevenwarriors.com/forum/football/2012/10/personnel-problems-on-d
As Meyer said, we are weak up the middle. That post about sums things up for the LB's. Sarah's http://www.elevenwarriors.com/2012/10/15037/identity-crisis#more gives a good look at the injuries that have affected us.
Immort alludes to a new(er) defensive system, and people on here disagree. The system may not be new, but the scheme is. When did we not use press as our base defense in year's past? I think Urban came in and made it clear that our corners would play off, allowing us to play more zone. People criticize that and attack Fickel for not having our corners press and LBs blitz more. D. Anthony points out that our defense was sliding last year and is quick to blame Fickel, but Heacock was still the DC last year and calling the D. And, we do know that Heacock was a good DC in his prime.
My point is that lot's of things are going on with this defense. Injuries, personnel issues, schematic differences, coaching issues, etc. Having been directly involved in problems like this both in my time at OSU and as a HS coach, I can tell you that these problems can be solved. It is often said that a coordinator has to be prepared for 3 major setbacks every season (injuries, off field issues, on the field issues). Well, it looks as though Luke is getting more than his share this season. As Meyer pointed out today in his presser, he will be spending a little more time on the defensive field this week. This is by no means out of the ordinary for any staff. And, I believe Meyer when he says he has competent coaches and will let them call the plays and sets. What his involvement will consist of, like he said today, is in making sure we are getting good drills on fundamentals during practice - something that should not have to occur this time of year. Mid season usually has lots of schematics vs fundamentals, but as is evident to us, and apparently all the coaches, the players need more basics at this point.
I find it amusing that many are calling for Fickel's head right now. Comparing his tenure to Rich Rod's DC's is a little overblown - none of them had as good of resumes as Luke. He has shown in the past that he is a good coach. He will have his hands full the rest of the season just trying to shore up this defense. The Curtis Grant thing is confusing at best, but my guess is that he just is not ready for prime time (to grab a phrase from a Fickel basher). As for Fickel, you just don't take a 4 year FB and throw him into the MLB position and have him become the leading tackler on the team without some very competent coaching in 3 days (Tue, Wed, and Thur. practices). Yes, he probably blew some assignments, but Grant had a lot more opportunities than that and did not produce. In my book Grant is not necessarily a coaching only problem. His fire will come on, but it may take a while. Please, let us all remember Eddie George! His was dismal in his first 2 years. And, if Luke can't make adjustments and solve some of these problems I trust Urban to deal with it and make the appropriate decisions. (Which is surprising coming from me because I really was not on the "hire Urban bandwagon" to begin with)
Wouldn't it be funny/sad if Indiana made it to Indy repping the leaders? Wisconsin could be their only obstacle
Great comment, NW Buckeye. My rational position is to look at things much like you do above.
Like others, though, I tend to be more emotional about, and less forgiving toward, defensive struggles compared to offensive struggles. At heart, I just feel like the Buckeyes should have a top 10 defense every freakin' year. That's not realistic in light of the weird LB attrition rate of the last 3-4 years, not to mention all the other crazy things that happened last year, but that mentality is sort of ingrained in Buckeye culture.
@ NW Buckeye, good post. @ Grayskullsession, I love you Woody. Nothing wrong with being passionate and fired up about how the defense has not performed. I agree they aren't where we want them to be right now. 49 points is ridiculous. I would love for the defense to play better. It is easy to think a Top Ten defense is expected every year. It just isn't that simple with a change in regime, attrition, injuries and youth all over the place. A base defense of Cover 4 is a LOT different than the Dantonio (and then Heacock) zone coverage defense. Although the fronts are similar, the zone concepts of Dantonio are miles apart, i.e., the back seven has had a huge change in defense, scheme or whatever else you want to call it. IMO, it is so different, it is an altogether different defense.
Also, although I agree LB play needs to improve greatly, the safeties are also struggling. They are thinking too much with the pattern match type defense. See, Ross's great article: http://www.elevenwarriors.com/2012/05/11293/osu-and-cover-4. Interestingly, this Cover 4 pattern match defense is Coach Withers's baby and the defense Coach Meyer wants to run. This isn't Coach Fickell's defense from last year.
The point of this whole thing is to trust Coach Meyer. Things will get fixed. The majority of players going through the biggest adjustments will be back next year (unless Roby takes off). By then, more athletes will be in place to run the defense and our back seven will be thinking less. Being concerned is ok, but let's let this thing play out.
Immort & Run- Thanks for the thumbs up. I can't believe that my post got down voted. I mean I can understand how people might disagree with that post, but just what did I do that violated the commenting policy?? Read it here - http://www.elevenwarriors.com/help/commenting-policy
I thought down votes are supposed to be for violations in that policy. Could someone please explain how and where I violated that policy??
I don't think you did.
no excuses to give up 49 to indiana.their offense is overated.they have played no one except msu and us.our 2nd and 3rd team players are more talented than their starters.forgot about northwestern with their stellar defense.
vincennes buckeye
2002OSUBUCK hit it on the head. in a zone scheme, it is the responsibility of the LBs to stem the short passing game. having slow-as-molasses storm klein and zach boren (as much as i love boren) starting at LB isn't going to cut it. we wonder why shazier constantly overpursues? it's because nobody else at his position has the wheels to get where they need to be. if 2 of the 3 LBs aren't taking care of what they need to, the secondary is going to start overpursuing / cheating up as well, leading to the big plays we are constantly seeing.
i seem to remember Urban at the beginning of the season saying something to the effect of "if Curtis Grant can't cut it, we are in a heap of trouble defensively." more prophetic words were never spoken.
the kids are playing their tail off, and the coaches are screwing it up! - JLS
2002OSUBuck-
Are you telling me that our defensvie personnel, specifically our LBs, are worse than Indiana State's? Ball State's? Umass? That argument only goes so far.
I dont think that many here are not trusting Urban Meyer. And the ones calling for coaches heads on sticks clearly just need to sit the next couple of plays out. But the big problem that I have had with people on this board is the ones who just turn the blind eye to how terrible this defense is and just say "eh we are 7-0". They are the same ones who are bashing others on this board for wanting to talk about the BIG problem that this team is having and that is not right. We should be able to talk about how bad this is because it is truly the biggest weakness on the team.
This isnt something that you can just ignore. The coaches arent ignoring it so why should the fans? I have full trust in the coaching staff but you better believe that as long as it keeps going the way it is I will continue to put my two cents in about it.
you have to factor in number of plays and possessions too - if we score faster, we will give up more points all other things being equal.
the kids are playing their tail off, and the coaches are screwing it up! - JLS
Good post
at first i thought it was going to be another foolish fire someone post....
Theres alot of good points back n forth but when all the facts are put together its clear no one should be on the chopping block O now.
O H I O is the Buckeye State