When Urban Meyer stepped to the podium Monday morning for his weekly press conference, the Ohio State head coach wasn’t bashful in his display of approval for the Buckeyes’ secondary.
“I haven’t watched all the secondaries in the country, the defensive backfields, but I’d take ours,” Meyer said. “The way they’re playing, the way they’ve worked, the way they’re coached. We went from one of the worst pass defenses in America two years ago — I know we’re No. 1 in the Big Ten, but we have to be up there in the national rankings. I haven’t seen that, but they’re playing at a high, high level.”
Meyer wasn’t wrong in his assessment. The Buckeyes actually rank fifth nationally in pass defense, allowing just 119 yards per game through the air. The only teams that rank ahead of Ohio State are Boston College (69 yards per game), San Jose State (73 yards per game), Missouri (112 yards per game) and Florida State (116.3 yards per game).
Stats this early in the season must be taken with a grain of salt, but considering Ohio State's two previous opponents both love to air it out on offense quite a bit, there's at least something to be taken from those numbers. Eli Apple and Gareon Conley at corner and Tyvis Powell and Vonn Bell at safety have exceeded expectations thus far.
“It starts with the players that we have, they’re talented players,” Ohio State co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach Chris Ash said. “They’re playing extremely hard. They’re playing with a lot of confidence. They believe in themselves, believe in what we ask them to do. They believe in the process, our weekly process of preparation to get ready for a game each week. They keep getting better every time they take the field.”
“I haven’t watched all the secondaries in the country but I’d take ours. ... They’re playing at a high, high level.”– Urban Meyer
Just two short years ago, though, as Meyer mentioned, an Ohio State secondary performing at this level didn’t seem like a possibility. The Buckeyes were one of the worst pass defenses in the Big Ten and in college football, allowing an average of 243.5 yards per game through the air in 2013.
But after Ash joined Ohio State’s staff prior to the 2014 season and brought with him a more aggressive, press quarters scheme, things have been different after a bit of a shaky start early in the year. Since then, though, the back four for the Buckeyes has played with the confidence and swagger necessary to be one of the nation’s best groups.
“We’re just doing the same thing that we’ve always been doing,” Apple said Monday. “Not getting too high, not getting too low about our work. We’re just going to continue to work hard and continue to do what we’ve been doing.”
Ash, Apple and even Meyer admitted a large part of the success Ohio State’s secondary has had early on this season has been because of the effectiveness of the team’s defensive line, getting after opposing quarterbacks and making the passing lanes difficult.
Redshirt freshman defensive end Sam Hubbard said Ash came into the defensive line’s team meeting room Sunday and told the group how important they were to the success of the secondary. Ash said opposing quarterbacks have been “running around back there scared to get hit.”
“I hear all this about our secondary, we’re playing well in pass defense and all that, and I mean there is really a reason why we’re having success and it’s because of our defensive line,” Ash said. “It’s team defense. It’s not about the secondary. It’s not about the corners and the safeties. It’s about team defense.”
There is not one singular reason why Ohio State’s secondary has been so effective through the season’s first three games. The success is a combination of a number of different factors.
But with the recent struggles the Buckeyes have had on offense, it’s been the defense — and more specifically, the secondary — which has been tasked with going out and trying to win the games.
Ohio State is just fine with that.
“At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what the offense does," Ash said. "If they score 50 points or five points, we have a job to do and it’s to go out there and limit points and keep the opponent out of the end zone. Our players take a lot of pride in that.”
