'Pissed off' Ohio State defense driven, not defined by last season
COLUMBUS — Kerry Coombs could spend time and effort trying to dissect what went wrong defensively for Ohio State last year.
A historically bad defense against the pass by program standards.
The 52 points allowed in a national title game.
Blown coverages and big plays at inopportune times.
But Coombs won’t waste a moment thinking about last season. It’s in the past. In his second season since returning to the Buckeyes staff in an enhanced role as a coordinator, Coombs can sense the frustration in his defense, a unit tired of hearing the numbers and narratives.
“I could spend a lot of time on that,” Coombs said. “I’m gonna say that they seem to me to be a really highly-motivated group of young men. They’ve got a little ‘pissed off’ in them.”
Following the blowout loss to Alabama in the national championship game, the Buckeyes could have forced wholesale changes on that side of the ball, especially after co-coordinator Greg Mattison retired. Instead, they only slightly retooled their staff. Coombs took a more big-picture role and ceded some responsibility with the defensive backs, while Matt Barnes was promoted from special teams coach into leading the secondary.
The Buckeyes learned last year’s defensive scheme on Zoom screens rather than practice fields. Now back inside the Woody Hayes Athletic Center for a full offseason, Ohio State kept continuity and didn’t change much — just tweaked it all.
This program won’t use limitations the pandemic created as an excuse. But players within the football facility also understand they need to be better, no matter how they are learning. And they will be.
“It’s a very driven defense,” veteran linebacker and captain Teradja Mitchell said. “Every guy, starting from [defensive line], linebackers, [defensive backs], everybody’s working to put their best foot forward. Working with communicating, understanding the concepts more, understanding that we have to step up, for sure.”
This edition of the Buckeyes defense will feature one of the most loaded fronts in the country, a revamped room trying to replace four now-NFL linebackers and a secondary full of young, talented players with plenty of question marks.
It also will incorporate a hybrid safety/linebacker into the mix, playing a versatile weapon as a Bullet, a position long talked about but is just now being utilized.
Everything this defense has done since January has been about fixing what went wrong last year — while not dwelling on it.
“We’re just playing with a chip on our shoulder,” redshirt freshman Kourt Williams said. “Going off what happened last year. I mean, we always feel like we’ve got something to prove.
“So we’re just going to do what we do.”
What Coombs and the Buckeyes could do is try to dissect what went wrong in the back end last year.
What they will do, however, is use it to play with a little ‘pissed off’ in them.
