COLUMBUS — Even though the Buckeyes are on a bye week, that didn’t stop Ohio State coordinators Greg Schiano and Ryan Day from spending some time Wednesday afternoon with reporters. Schiano was first and talked about his defense and the possibility of changes coming in the next week. Here are the highlights of what Schiano had to say.
Greg Schiano
+ Asked abut moving the linebackers further away from the line of scrimmage, Schiano says they moved away from walking the linebackers up to the line of scrimmage in base defense. They maybe did it two or three times. In other situations they moved them up closer. There are positives to doing it, like eliminating double teams for your defensive line. They thought the linebackers would get better at it and become comfortable with it, but it never really happened. But that’s not the only reason for the defensive struggles. And there are a lot of good plays, but the big plays are still an issue.
+ Big penalties by the defense on Saturday were essentially turnovers.
+ “But there is no ‘one thing.’ It’s a combination of them all.” Schiano does see the defense ascending. Fixing the big plays is the big thing.
+ The good thing about a bye week is that they can focus on themselves. “It’s been a good exercise. I think we’re getting close and it’s just in the nick of time.”
+ It is possible he put too much on a group of young defenders? “You always got to look in the mirror first.” Schiano tries not to says his defense is young, but wishes they had more plays under their belt. At Ohio State, “young is good” because it means old went to the NFL early and you’ve had good players.
+ Schiano asked his assistant coaches to look in the mirror and ask “where are we not doing the very best” for their players.
+ Mental errors have not been a big issue.
+ The defense missed 20 tackles last week. It was not an alarming issue prior to last week. Give Purdue some credit, but for whatever reason the defense tackled as poorly as they’ve tackled since Schiano has been at OSU.
+ “You’re not going to wholesale your schemes, nor should we.” They will work on tweaks and looking at what they can do to help their players.
+ “The fourth quarter really got away from us.” Schiano asked his players what they think occurred in the fourth quarter. There were missed tackles in the fourth quarter.
+ Schiano feels they are very close to being a mature defense. “We’re close. I really do feel that way. This home stretch is going to determine this season.”
+ It is difficult to make changes during the season and there won’t be big changes during the bye week. They are going to tweak some things which he isn’t going to share. It’s about helping the players be in better positions to make plays.
+ It’s never just scheme or execution when you’re playing poorly or playing well.
+ “I actually think the linebackers have played consistently.”
+ Even before Nick Bosa got injured Chase Young was playing at a high level. He is learning as he goes, but has made very good things happen out on the field. If they can make him more consistent, then watch out because he is a special athlete.
+ Asked why they don’t mix coverages to avoid big plays, Schiano said in this RPO world you have to be man coverage in some degree. Ohio State has traditionally been a man coverage team, but they have actually played more zone this year than in years past. They will not make drastic changes to the defense, just tweaks. They won’t come out and be a zone team every down.
+ When you put a linebacker up in a gap, that immediately takes double teams off of the defensive line. They didn’t do as much of it last week, other than on third down. This season they haven’t done it as well as they’ve wanted to do it and it hasn’t come to fruition in games. “We’ve backed away from it already.” It will still be there just not as much as we saw earlier in the season.
Schiano needs to go, and the Buckeyes need a new defensive scheme. Schiano can talk all he wants to about “tweaking” or “fixing” things on defense, but none of the tweaks or fixes have worked. The Buckeyes have the talent to be a dominant defense, they just need the right coaches.
Consistency is key!
Schiano is right about one thing- the linebackers HAVE indeed played consistently…would anyone like to provide the punchline/hit that softball I just provided?
SURE…..consistently very, very, very, very, very BAD.
I really don’t expect the coaches to tip their hand in terms of what changes they my make or what they think the major problems are. They are studying the film and have a much better perspective than us couch potatoes. Our frustration comes from being totally impotent to do or say anything that has a chance of gaining traction. That is as it should be. Everybody knows that fans know so much ore about coaching than coaches do.
So guys who have played the game at a very high level……..oh, lets say someone like James Laurinaitis, since he’s not a coach and now just a fan, doesn’t have the where with all to diagnose a dumpster fire defense when he sees it?
Probably more than half the coaches in Div 1A got their starts by who they knew….not WHAT they knew, so, yeah, there are fans out watching games who actually do know more than a lot of coaches. Nor does it take the majority of fans more than a game or 2 max to know there’s a major problem with a scheme and player development.
By fans, he means people like you, James, not former players like Laurinaitis. And he’s 100% correct.
“Just in the nick of time”
Seems more like it’s “a day late and a dollar short” coach.
SAME VERBAGE, OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER…AD NAUSEAM
LINEBACKERS BEEN CONSISTENT????? YEAH CONSISTENTLY BAD
TWEAKS…..ONLY TWEAKS…..THIS TEAM NEEDS A LOT MORE THAN TWEAKS INMHO
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