Why Ohio State's defense shouldn't be the 'weak link' in 2023

Ultimately, it was the defensive side of the football that did Ohio State in against both Michigan and Georgia to end their season. The Buckeyes offense, behind would-be top draft choice CJ Stroud and his electric cast of receivers, sliced through pretty much everyone. But the defense gave it all back and allowed over 40 points to the Bulldogs in the College Football Playoff semifinal.

That was year one under defensive coordinator Jim Knowles. According to On3’s JD PicKell, OSU fans can expect a monumental improvement in year two of what he considers to be a very complicated defensive system.

Over on the On3 YouTube channel, PicKell broke down why a year of experience under Knowles plus improved personnel across the board has him exciting for the defensive product the Buckeyes put on the field.

Take a listen at what he had to say regarding to Ohio State defense right here, or you can read his comments in full below:

JD PicKell expects defensive improvement from Ohio State

“I think some people look at Ohio State and they see the defense as the weak link. I don’t think that’s the case. I mean, I really think the personnel is in a place that makes them as competitive as they’ve ever been on that side of the football. They went to the portal and got themselves some dudes in the secondary. Ja’Had Carter as safety being one of them, who they have raved about so far during spring ball in Columbus. Like, I don’t think personnel is the problem.

“The reason why I’m a little bit more encouraged, outside of personnel, at Ohio State this coming season on the defensive side of the football is… it’s going to be their second year under DC Jim Knowles and Jim Knowles’ defense is very difficult to process. Like, it’s a lot of rule-breaking tendencies. I say rule-breaking — as a defensive player, there’s just some things that are second nature for you to do in a defense Jim Knowles defense, without boring you too much, is just counter-intuitive, to put it simply.

“So, going into your second year under Jim Knowles, there is going to be more comfortability, there’s going to be more familiarity with this scheme. It’s going to be a lot less thinking, a lot more just letting your instincts kick in and letting you play. And the reason why I think that’s important to say is… people look at the Michigan game and they say, ‘well, they just got out toughed. Some of that could be true, I’m not saying that’s just not a factor. But you look at the big plays that Michigan had, I look at those and I see self-inflicted wounds by Ohio State.

“The second year in the scheme, when you’re more comfortable and you know the scheme and you feel like you are playing more fluid, you don’t have to think so much. And when you’re not having to think, that takes away the potential for, you know, you to get your your feet crossed and fall down and a guy runs past you, completes a deep pass. Taking away the physical errors takes away the mental errors, because you’re just more locked into what you need to do, you’re not having to second guess yourself. So the mental and physical errors that we saw from Ohio State in big games — and Ryan Day alluded to it during our conversation.

“I don’t think we see as much of that from the Buckeyes this coming season. So you add the personnel with the comfortability on the scheme part of things, then you add in the potential of what you could have offensively, like if they get the quarterback position right, there is no reason Ohio State can’t get back to the College Football Playoff.”