Caleb Downs 'One Of The Best Football Minds In The Entire World'

A year ago as a starting safety for the Alabama Crimson Tide, Caleb Downs became the first true freshman to ever lead the program in tackles. His 107 stops were 40 more than anybody else on the team.

Accolades followed, but they paled in comparison to the value of the experience he gained. Now still only a sophomore, Downs is a leader of the Ohio State defense.

“I was blessed to do that, and I feel like I worked enough to do that,” Downs said on Tuesday. “I’m just thankful for the opportunity that I played that early. I feel like it definitely accelerated my growth as a football player and being able to see the game. I think that I can help the team just based off of that, just based off of my experiences there and how that will help me coming in here.”

If you watch Caleb Downs’ film from the start of the year to the end of the it, you will see the growth that he made. It led to a more confident player, a faster and more physical player, and one who anticipates as well as he reacts.

“You can see that throughout my film,” Downs said.

In January when he transferred from Alabama to Ohio State, he essentially went back to square one. He had to learn a new defense, earn trust from coaches and teammates, and be a pillar of strength for the entire defense.

Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles calls his scheme “a safety-driven defense.” There are few better drivers than Caleb Downs, but he still had to pick up the defense just as quickly as he did a year ago.

How did he do?

“Yeah, incredibly fast. Incredibly fast,” said OSU safeties coach Matt Guerrieri. “For him to be able to take the entire packaging from Jim Knowles and be able to run with that and then direct traffic. It’s one thing just to know it and go function and play. If you play safety in the system you have to be able to direct traffic. We put the checks on those guys. Run game, throw game, they have to know it all. He’s been great from that standpoint.”

Whatever Knowles and Guerrieri need from Downs, they trust him to get the job done. “Physically, he can do it all,” according to Guerrieri. Whether that’s covering a receiver or tight end, coming up into the box as a run defender, being a centerfielder, man, zone, blitzing, it doesn’t matter. But that’s only one part of his game.

“Yeah, physically he can do it all,” Guerrieri said. “He’s versatile from that standpoint, but mentally is what is his separator. He’s unique. His preparation level is unmatched. He sees it from a coach’s lens. He’s got to have one of the best football minds in the entire world. He’s a special, special man.”

Guerrieri then gave an example of the way Caleb Downs’ mind works.

“One of the projects that we did initially was to watch every single snap that he took from a year ago,” he explained. “We go game by game, it’s pretty special. I’ll tell you guys this, the screen comes up and you’ve got overlays on there. Normally defensive calls and that kind of stuff. Obviously I don’t have their calls and things like that, all I’d have is down and distance, and time and score. The play would come up, he could tell me the defensive call and what happened on the play before the film even started. That’s from a year ago. That’s pretty special when you start saying, ‘Okay, what’s the mental makeup of this young man?'”

Downs doesn’t necessarily see it as special. He just sees it as the fruits of his labor.

“I feel like it’s just instincts for the game,” Downs said. “The more that you’re around the game and the more that you watch, the more that you’re able to remember the game instead of reacting to the game that is happening. So when the play is going on, if you remember what can happen, and you remember like this set can cause this play to happen and this set can cause this play to happen, you can remember what happens instead of reacting to it and reacting in the moment.”

Expectations have always been very high for Caleb Downs. There’s a reason Ohio State and every other major program in the nation recruited him out of high school. Every step of the way he has exceeded those expectations.

Which is why Matt Guerrieri paused for a moment when asked what, if anything, has surprised him about Downs.

“I don’t know,” he said. “From a surprise standpoint, I think what you’ve heard about and read about is all true. The thing that probably isn’t talked about enough, he’s a great teammate. You can talk about his talent, or the way the guy sees the game, or the play that you’ve seen on the field, but he’s a great young man. He’s a great teammate. He cares about his team, he cares about his family, and he’s a special young man just who he is as a person.”