As the 2022 season begins, Ohio State wasn’t shy about setting high expectations for Jim Knowles’ freshman year.
At the Big Ten Media Days, Ryan Day said he thinks the Buckeyes should have a top 10 defense this year. A few weeks later, Knowles doubled down on those comments, saying he thinks Ohio State should have a top-five defense. Teradja Mitchell went even further and said he was holding Ohio State’s defense “should aim for 1st place.”
Ohio State nearly lived up to those expectations for most of the season. The Buckeyes held their opponents to an average of just 15.6 points per game and 271.5 yards per game in their first 10 games of the year — numbers that would both have landed in the top seven nationally if they had been in the state’s last three games Ohio would have kept up.
However, in the big late-season games that really mattered, Ohio State’s defense fell nowhere near meeting those expectations, and the Buckeyes again fell short of all key goals.
After giving up 45 points at 530 yards to Michigan in the final game of the regular season, Ohio State gave up 42 points at 533 yards to Georgia in Saturday night’s Peach Bowl, leading to a second straight loss to end the 2022 season.
For the second straight game, Ohio State gave up the worst number of yards per game as Georgia averaged 8.88 yards per game over 60 games after Michigan averaged 8.83 yards over the same number of games in the Buckeyes’ previous game competition scored per game.
Explosive plays killed the Buckeyes again as Ohio State gave up 10 plays of at least 20 yards to the Bulldogs, including four plays of 35 yards or more.
“If we’re going to win these games, we can’t give up these big, explosive plays,” Ryan Day said during his post-game press conference. “It’s hard to come back from them.”
Ohio State’s defense struggled, especially in the first half, when the Buckeyes conceded 24 points and 314 yards in just 32 games. The Buckeyes’ halftime adjustments worked in the third quarter, in which Ohio State held Georgia scoreless and to just 15 yards on their first three possessions of the second half. However, with the game on the line in the fourth quarter, the Buckeyes gave up three straight scoring drives.
The Buckeyes held Georgia to a field goal on their first possession in the fourth quarter, but the dam broke on the Bulldogs’ next two drives. Arian Smith scored a 76-yard touchdown when Lathan Ransom ducked for cover to make it a one-score play. Then, after Ohio State opted for the field goal in its subsequent series to keep it a one-score game, UGA drove 72 yards down the field in five games when Stetson Bennett with a 35-yard pass tied with Kearis Jackson and followed that up with the game-winning 10-yard touchdown throw against AD Mitchell two games later.
And just like that…WE ARE ALL BOUND#CFBPlayoff pic.twitter.com/1Z1XZAWcdP
— ESPN (@espn) January 1, 2023
While Ohio State’s offense excelled for much of the game, scoring more points (41) for 467 yards than anyone all year against Georgia, the Buckeyes’ defense fell short when the game was at stake . Knowles said it falls on him.
“The bottom line is execution, and we didn’t make it defensively in the fourth quarter,” Knowles said. “And it’s now up to me to spend many dark nights trying to figure out (why this happened). It’s not the players, it’s up to me to put them in the right positions and if you don’t get it you can always look at it and look at a call here or there and say, ‘Boy I wish I did it would be in another call.’”
Ohio State was never expected to be as defensively dominant in its final games of the year as it was during most of the regular season, when the Buckeyes mostly hit on poor offenses. Georgia and Michigan ranked in the top 10 in terms of points scored per game that year, so it stands to reason that they were the offenses that had the most success against the Buckeyes.
Still, the Buckeyes allowed the Bulldogs and Wolverines to score and gain yards above their season averages. In the games Ohio State was supposed to face up to and play its best football, the Buckeyes’ defense was exposed instead of taking their game to a higher level.
Why the defense faltered in those two games wasn’t necessarily for the same reasons. Knowles said the Buckeyes used a less aggressive game plan against Georgia than they did against Michigan; it just didn’t work like it should.
“We played defense to prevent the big game,” Knowles said. “We didn’t flash much tonight. We really don’t have that. We were pretty easy and gave our guys a chance to play. So it wasn’t the aggressiveness. We only missed a few.”
“If we’re going to win these games, we mustn’t give up these big explosive plays.” – Ryan-Tag
There should always have been some growing pains in Knowles’ first season at Ohio State, too. His track record at previous schools shows his defensive changes typically took several years to produce the results he wanted, and several returning Buckeye defensemen said after the game that they expect another offseason with Knowles to produce better results will lead.
“I think with the guys coming back as well and just having another year on defense is going to make a huge difference,” said defensive end Jack Sawyer.
However, Knowles is paid $1.9 million annually for making Ohio State’s defense one of the best in the country, and neither he nor Day nor any other Buckeyes made any effort to lower that expectation before the start of the season. Ohio State’s defense fell short of that expectation when a trip to the Big Ten Championship Game was at stake against Michigan and a trip to the national championship game against Georgia. So Knowles knows it’s up to him to find answers that the defense will play better in big games going forward.
“Like I said from the start, the expectations at Ohio State are different. That’s why we get paid the way we do it. That’s why we get the resources we do. Expectations are different,” Knowles said. “Do I think we did our best? I don’t know, I have to see the film, but I know we’ve given up too many plays. And that’s my job to fix that and not let that happen. Didn’t make it tonight.”
