Helping Buckeyes forge a feisty defense
Coordinator Luke Fickellworking to keep players on edge for ’15.
Luke Fickell COLUMBUS— once heardWoody Hayes say, “If anybody gives you a compliment, kick him in the shin. Unless it’s an old lady or something.”
Old ladies, at least the ones who are Ohio State fans, do love Luke Fickell right now. The same goes for almost everyone else in Buckeye Nation.
Fickell, Ohio State’s defensive coordinator and linebackers coach, won a national championship with the Buckeyes in 2002 when he served as special teams coordinator. He bridged the gap between Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer with a year on the sidelines as interim head coach.
Meyer kept him on staff when he was hired, and after the defense struggled at the end of the 2013 season, Fickell transformed it into the unit it is today — with a lot of help from co-defensive coordinator Chris Ash. It’s a defense earning heaps of compliments three weeks before the season opener at Virginia Tech.
Fickell and the Buckeyes have tuned out some of that noise as they guard against complacency.
“Wemake it very uncomfortable still,” he said. “Sometimes you have to find other ways to create that discomfort. We didn’t have to do that last year. We had a lot of outside sources that created that discomfort. We feel a lot more comfortable when we get to create that discomfort. I know Coach (Meyer) does that to us. It makes us grow. We’ll continue to do it to our guys.”
The Buckeyes return 22 letter-winners on defense, including seven starters. That doesn’t mean they have everything they need. Fickell still wants to see the leadership that players such as Doran Grant and Curtis Grant provided a season ago as seniors.
“There’s some difference between committed guys and compelled guys,” Fickell said. “Those compelled guys are ones who will truly sacrifice for their brothers. You only know that when you get in those adverse situations. We’re going to try to do asmuch as we can to put them in those situations as early and as often as we can, but there’s no pressure like (being in front of ) 110,000 people or being down to see how they’ll handle it.”
Ohio State enters the season with the nation’s longest active winning streak (13 games). It has won 24 straight games in Big Ten regular-season play (8-0 in each of Meyer’s first three seasons). It’s the first team in conference history to go unbeaten and untied three seasons in a row.
Ohio State’s defense ranked fourth in the nation last season with 25 interceptions and second with six defensive TDs.
Those are high standards to live up to, but if success breeds success, this could be one of the more successful teams in Ohio State history.
“The culture is really showing up,” Fickell said. “It’s not something we put on the wall. It’s something we put on film. When you see those guys live it and bleed it and put it on film, it becomesmuch more contagious.”