I know that if Jim Knowles had attended the championship celebration on Sunday, it absolutely would have been a distraction. While Ryan Day is trying to talk about the team, fans would have been chanting “Come back, Jim” or something much more worse. Without him there, this was allowed to be about the players. With him there, it would have been about something else as well. No reason to take the focus off the players.
I think it’s interesting that players are willing to take less money to be at Ohio State, but the defensive coordinator isn’t. I’m not sure if people understand that just about everybody on this team could have gotten more money elsewhere. And the ones who couldn’t simply have no market value. Knowles doesn’t have as many years left in football as the players, so it makes sense to go get the bag, but the bag was just an added benefit to leaving Ohio State.
I wonder if James Franklin knew Jim Knowles was going to be interested, which made the decision to let Tom Allen go much easier.
I know I have seen some suggesting Davison Igbinosun move to nickel, but I don’t think he has that in mind. He wants to be a first-round corner, not a first-round nickel.
I think we often ignore the players on the roster when we judge coordinators. The 2019 defense was the best in the nation and Jeff Hafley gets a ton of credit for that. The Buckeyes had three NFL defensive linemen – including a dominant Chase Young, two NFL linebackers, two first-round corners, and Jordan Fuller and Shaun Wade.
I wonder what Jeff Hafley or Jim Knowles would have been able to do with the secondary during Kerry Coombs’ two years. We’re talking Marcus Hooker, Sevyn Banks, Bryson Shaw, Cameron Brown, Ryan Watts, and Marcus Williamson. Cam Brown was part of Knowles’ first year, but you get the picture. Coombs didn’t have any NFL guys on the interior defensive line either, which didn’t help.
To read the rest of this edition of What I Know, What I Think, What I Wonder, you can click here. You will need to be a premium subscriber. Additional topics include more on Jim Knowles, Justin Frye’s future, the championship celebration, Will Howard, the 2025 QB Draft, adding a quarterback in the portal, the 2025 defense, storming the field, and more.
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