Knowles banking on improvement in second year as defensive coordinator
Jim Knowles has coached college football since 1989, but the defensive coordinator was still the new guy at Ohio State last year.
He was given a mandate to fix a defense that had been dysfunctional in 2021. By some measures, he clearly did. The Buckeyes improved nationally from 59th to 14th in total defense last year, allowing 51 fewer yards per game. They improved from 38th to 24th in scoring defense, yielding 21.0 points, almost 2 fewer than in ’21.
But Ohio State faltered in its biggest games. Five big plays doomed the Buckeyes against Michigan. Against Georgia in the College Football Playoff semifinal, Ohio State gave little resistance on the Bulldogs’ game-winning touchdown drive after giving up a long touchdown pass with a 14-point lead.
“It haunts me all the time,” Knowles said.
With Ohio State’s spring practice starting Tuesday, Knowles finally can begin implementing what he has learned.
When Ryan Day hired him last year from Oklahoma State, Knowles accepted that he didn’t have years to turn Ohio State into a championship defense. Expectations weren’t as high at Duke in 2011 or Oklahoma State in 2018 when he became defensive coordinator at those programs. In Durham and Stillwater, Knowles’ defenses improved gradually.
At Duke, the Blue Devils even regressed modestly statistically in his second year before improving significantly in his final two years. At Oklahoma State, the Cowboys went from 112th to 82nd to 44th to fourth in total defense under
Knowles.
The talent level is better at Ohio State than at those programs, and Knowles knows the pressure is on this year.
“Just like everybody else, he’s very prideful,” Buckeyes coach Ryan Day said. “He knows what the standard is. That was clearly laid out. So he has owned it, and we all have. And so we’re all working toward this season. It’s exciting because we’ve got a good group coming back, and now we’re into year two in the system.”
With a 4-2-5 alignment instead of a 4-3 and a different philosophy, there were bound to be growing pains last year. Knowles said throughout the season that the Buckeyes were ahead of schedule in terms of learning his scheme.
The Michigan and Georgia games showed how much work remains. Safety Ronnie Hickman, who left for the NFL after last season, said he expects his former teammates to take a significant step forward.
“I think those guys will be a lot more
poised out there,” he said. “If you put guys in the same system again, the confidence level goes through the roof. They played a full season with it. They were able to watch the film from it and build off of that. Any time you can watch the film on certain things and know that it’ll be the same thing next year, you can make some adjustments.”
Knowles expects the same thing. He knows his players’ strengths and weaknesses now. He said he can coach them differently.
“Now that I have a year under my belt, my job is to say, ‘OK, with the guys we have coming back, what do they do best?’ and talk about those things,” he said. “It’s not what I know. It’s what they do best, and now we have video to look at.
“Now that I’m coming into year two, I’ve got to be even more demanding, and then push and put on more steam with the players individually on the preciseness of the technique. I’ve got to really bear down.”