Opposing Offenses Keying On Ohio State's Joey Bosa Has Allowed Others To Make Plays

By Tim Shoemaker on October 9, 2015 at 1:15 pm
Ohio State's defense huddles against Indiana
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Take one glance down Ohio State’s defensive stat sheet and it’s hard not to notice a rather low number in the sacks column across from Joey Bosa’s name. The Buckeyes’ All-American defensive end has recorded just half of a sack through the first month of the 2015 season.

There’s no cause for concern, though, Bosa says. He feels like he’s close to breaking out and getting back to his sophomore-season ways, where the 6-foot-6, 275-pounder led the Big Ten with 13.5 sacks.

Bosa has delivered some big hits on opposing quarterbacks this year, but hasn’t been able to bust out his signature shrug in quite some time, though he has had two sacks negated this season because of penalties. Part of that is because opposing teams are scheming toward Bosa on the defensive line, sending double and sometimes triple teams his way to try and make sure somebody else on Ohio State’s defense makes a play.

“People are gonna make plans for it,” Buckeyes co-defensive coordinator Luke Fickell said. “You talk to people after games and sometimes they say, ‘Yeah, we had a plan.’ Whether they try to wham him or chip him, they try to do some different things to slow him down. He has to understand that, he has to know that.”

Make no mistake about it: Bosa is still making plays for Ohio State despite his low sack number. He has continued to impact games in other ways. But all of the attention he is getting has helped allow some of the Buckeyes’ other defensive linemen to shine in their own way.

“[Bosa] deals with a lot; there’s a lot of scheme to it,” said redshirt sophomore Tyquan Lewis, who starts at the defensive end spot opposite Bosa. “Some teams scheme him a lot, but it’s just when the play comes your way you’ve gotta make it.”

Lewis — and the rest of Ohio State’s other defensive linemen — have been winning those battles a lot, too. The Buckeyes still rank 12th nationally in sacks, despite Bosa’s low total.

Lewis has been a big part of that with a team-high 3.5 so far in 2015. Reserve defensive end Sam Hubbard and star outside linebacker Darron Lee each have 2.5. In total, Ohio State has 10 players who have recorded at least a half-sack so far this season.

It goes beyond just sacks, though. The Buckeyes are also blowing many plays up in the backfield as they rank 24th in the country with 35 tackles for loss. Lewis paces that category, as well, with six TFLs on the year and right behind him are Bosa, Lee, Hubbard and linebacker Joshua Perry.

“It definitely puts you in a better situation because you’ve got a one-on-one and you want to win every time,” Lewis said. “You feel like you’re the best in the country? You’ve gotta win every time.”

Ohio State has experimented with moving Bosa all around the defensive line to make it more difficult for opposing teams to scheme toward him.

“Even [against Indiana] in the game, I think that crack block on Tyquan was probably meant for 97,” Fickell joked.

Bosa said last week he’s not really paying much attention to his numbers, but instead insisted his focus was on the team winning games.

“Stats don’t really matter as long as we’re out there playing well,” Bosa said.

Teams aren’t going to go away from this strategy; they’d be dumb to do so. And odds are Bosa is going to break out at some point this season despite how frustrated he may or may not be at this point.

“I tell him to take it with some respect,” Fickell said. “People are looking for you and they’re trying to game plan for you which means other people have gotta step up too.”

And so far, Bosa’s teammates have answered that call.

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