Ohio State Defensive Notebook: ‘All three of those guys are considered ones’

Where Do You See Yourself In Five Years?

Ohio State sophomore safety Caleb Downs was a Freshman All-American last year at Alabama. Following the retirement of Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban, Downs entered the transfer portal. The move allowed the Buckeyes to recruit Downs for a second time.

Now, just days away from the safety making his OSU debut, Buckeye defensive coordinator Jim Knowles was asked what his emotions were like after losing out in the first recruitment nearly two years ago.

“Well, you take the emotions out of it,” Knowles said on Tuesday. “So when you say my emotions, you take the emotions out of it. I just knew we had to be on point. Really, you look to recruit someone like that who understands the game the way he does. It’s like a job interview. It’s like game day. So my job is to not be that rah-rah guy and all the beautiful things about Ohio State. My job is to explain the defense in detail so that he understands that I’m going to be able to coach him and make him better on the field and with the scheme. So it’s a lot more analytical. A lot more analytical.”

So if it was like a game day when Knowles recruited him a second time, was he an aggressive play caller that day or did he play bend-but-don’t break?

“I really likened it to when I interviewed at Oklahoma State,” Knowles explained. “I think Coach Gundy brought in 10 guys. Brought you into a room, grilled you for three hours, didn’t see the campus, shut the laptop, left. Find out whether you get the job or not. That’s what it was like with Caleb. Pack up your laptop, head to Georgia, get in the house, three hours on the tape, pack up the laptop, and hope you did a good job.”

How Long Will The Starters Play?

When a season starts with the kind of season-opener the Buckeyes have on Saturday, questions start being asked of just how long the starters are going to be in the game.

The coaches will talk about it among themselves but don’t generally divulge to reporters that they expect the starters to be out of the game by halftime. That’s not exactly the way to respect the opponent or the football gods.

With this year’s Buckeye defense wanting to play as much depth as possible, there will be plans in place. But the first plan is to secure the win.

“Key situations, you want your best guys,” Jim Knowles said.

“I think when you have a clear divide between the first group and the next group, you’re going to have your best guys in there in a key situation. I mean, you’re going to look to continue to build that next group because anything can happen in this game, and they may be in there in key situations, but at least initially until they get their feet wet, you’re going to have your best guys in there.”

In speaking specifically about the first-team safeties Lathan Ransom and Caleb Downs and second-team safeties Malik Hartford and Jaylen McClain, Knowles was pressed and asked if a score of, say, 14-0 in the second quarter would lead to him subbing in a backup.

“I would say no, you’re playing your ones,” he replied.

Three’s Company

One of the benefits of coaching at a place like Ohio State is that there are generally multiple options when it comes to building a starting lineup. On Tuesday, Buckeye head coach Ryan Day confirmed that junior Sonny Styles would start at Will linebacker ahead of classmate CJ Hicks. Both players have done well in camp, but there can be only one starter.

Jim Knowles was then asked if the same principle he is applying to substituting at safety applies to linebacker.

“Yeah, no, it doesn’t apply to CJ,” he said. “So that’s when you get into, like, okay, we have CJ, who when I think about things, I think about, ‘okay, is there a clear delineation between one and two,’ but not with CJ. I mean, just like Cody [Simon] was [last year], I consider CJ a one.”

Cody Simon is the Buckeyes’ starting middle linebacker this season, but has played every linebacker spot in his prior four years at Ohio State. Styles started last year in the secondary but is making the move down and has apparently made the most of it. But Knowles has also talked about plans for Hicks long before the Akron game was on the horizon.

Even though the Buckeyes will likely only have two linebackers on the field to start the game, Knowles believes he has three starters in that group.

“You could see a combination there,” he said. “You could see Sonny playing Mike and CJ playing Will and Cody taking a rest, you know? Or you could see CJ at Will and Sonny taking a rest. So I think all three of those guys are considered ones and should play equally.”

Ten days earlier, Knowles was asked how much cross-training Styles and Hicks had done at middle linebacker. At the time, he said they hadn’t done much because they didn’t want to put too much on anybody’s plate.

Over the past week or so, however, it sounds like Sonny Styles has cleaned his plate to the point now that if they need him in the middle, he can handle it.

“Oh, yes,” Knowles said. “Oh, yes. Sonny is extremely coachable. He’s one of those guys you can tell things to one time and he gets it. So we have some versatility there.”

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