70 explosive plays does sound like a lot. What is an explosive play? How many yards given up? What would be a goal for a good defense? How many explosive plays did Ohio produce? Are explosive plays on the safeties? Might they be explosive by the time they reach the safeties?

Part of the reason for so many explosive plays is the switch to the cover 4. In the traditional cover 2 the safeties are backups, and help prevent big plays. The cover 2 is a bend but don't break defense. Give them three to four yards every play, but avoid the big plays, and figure that sooner or later the offense will make a mistake.

By contrast the cover 4 is designed to contest every yard, trying for the three and out. The safeties have responsibilities their own and are often not available to backup plays. The result is more stops for no gain, but also giving up more big gains.

How many explosive plays did the top defenses allow? How about their Pass Defense Efficiency? Toledo led the MAC with 119.3. Ohio was 120.7. Pass Defense CMU leads the MAC at 190 yds allowed per game, Ohio is back at 209 per game. Those numbers are pretty good. You might be right, but, these other numbers don't indicate they were getting torched. What does 70 explosive plays really mean? When were they occurring, perhaps those games when Poling was out?

Anyone out there have a story about that RB that made you look so stupid? Be honest.

No doubt the amount of big plays on the ground was disturbing. Seemed like we either flat out stuffed somebody, or got completely gashed. If someone made it to the second level, they were gone. long runs cost us the Minnesota game, the bowl game, and don't even get me started about WMU. I understand that our D might be high risk/high reward, but there has to be an adjustment in there somewhere.

Exactly. That's a consequence of the Cover-4, which is why I have very mixed emotions about it. I do think that the coaches are still learning, and making improvements. The D didn't get gashed as often in 2015 as they did in 2014, and FWIW, Michigan State seems to rarely get gashed with it, so I hope they can continue to learn ways to prevent those gashes.

Chris Brown took a nice look at Dantonio's and Narduzzi's system a couple years ago.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/michigan-state-oregon-p... ]





That second excerpt tells me Ohio has to get better in all those things to make this defense work. Because there are way too many breakdowns right now for Ohio to be playing an all-or-nothing defense at this point.

Umm....we are not good at tackling. Our fundamental tackling in the secondary has been poor for years. (i.e. Omar Leftwich, Devin Bass, Josh Kristoff, etc.)

Here are a few of the explosive plays vs. Ohio this year....enjoy:

Toran Davis....the whiff: http://es.pn/1Zi4PCy

Davis takes a really bad angle: http://es.pn/1RwFUcS

Ian Wells....ummm....nice tackle?: http://es.pn/1QH4uaM

Brent Layton....toast: http://es.pn/1OpKoBm

More bad angles...Davis gets sucked up way too far...Layton gets pancaked: http://es.pn/1HalRgZ

More awful tackling (Davis, Jovan, Layton) + bad angles from Carpenter, Wells: http://es.pn/1WBa1Oz

Carpenter getting roasted: http://es.pn/1Zp2hDv

WMU Game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6ODKckuTa8

2:15 mark.....blown coverage
2:36 mark.....Devin Jones missed tackle....Bogan, goodbye
2:46 mark....more poor tackling at point of attack...big gain
2:55 mark....Evan Crouch whiff....and then horrid "push" attempt by Jovon, Bass trucked
3:01 mark....right thru the gut....Carpenter, Bass look like keystone cops trying to make stop
3:22 mark....more bad tackling at point of attack and huge gain ensues
3:26 mark....Jones torched on simple post route for TD
3:50 mark....terrible arm tackling at point of attack...Aaron Macer whiff
3:58 mark....totally untouched for long TD run

Macer missed tackle: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=13962940

Bass gets beat...and called for PI: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=13961469

Bass/Wells laughable tackling: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=13640912

Total breakdown...Jones out of position: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=13641032

Bass/Carpenter keystone cop routine again on pass defense: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=13692453

Fake punt...bad angle from Macer: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=13692029

Big run...Toran Davis sucked up too far/bad angle http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=13692076

Ian Wells beat: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=14055104


This obviously isn't all of them...but I think you get the point. Ohio defense isn't championship caliber vs good teams. They routinely cleaned up vs bad teams (i.e. Miami, Ball, Kent, Akron, Idaho).....but against good teams (and even some not-so-good-teams like UB) they are too soft on back end....not stout enough up front. Hopefully that changes in 2016.

I came across a lot of other plays....but did not match the criteria of explosive plays (20+ yards)

For the record, according to Ohio games notes going into App State, the offense had 73 explosive plays this year....but it did not say home many defense had allowed.

So the defense gave up 70, the offense produced 73. I am still trying to figure what the MAC leading defenses are allowing. Since other stats, Pass Def/Pass Def Eff seem to indicate Ohio was within arms length of the MAC leaders.

Since there is all that film out there and there are 73 plays of Ohio turning these tables please come back with the Green and White doing it to the other guys. Seems like to be fair you would have done that anyway. You know as an Ohio fan.

I'm not sure the 70 that allen mentioned is true stat. I could be wrong.

The only reason why I did this research in the first place was to truly show you how bad our defense was at points this season. You were questioning what an explosive play was and the validity of a lot of them. So I thought giving you some video to watch would satisfy your curiosity.

I don't need to show the Ohio offensive explosive plays....if you want to, go right ahead.

I know our offense showed flashes this season....but overall, they were inconsistent when it mattered most. Want to prove me otherwise? I'd gladly like to see it.

Our defense was inconsistent nearly all season. You'll see in those clips some of those plays came vs. SELA & Miami and some against WMU & BG.

We had equal opportunity blown plays against good and bad teams. Overall, we were able to overcome those vs. the really bad teams (Idaho, Miami, Kent, Ball & SELA)....and were just good enough to slip past Akron and win at NIU and vs. Marshall.

But vs. WMU, UB and BG we were dreadful....on both sides of the ball.

But go ahead and cover your eyes when watching these.....and then go dig up the Ohio explosive offensive plays to make you feel better.

You know...as an Ohio fan and all.

So you found out BG's offensive explosive plays, you probably have their defensive allowed explosive plays as well. Care to share, please. It would be helpful.

Thanks for posting. As I have time, I'll watch all of them, but for now I just got through the first three. On the first one, I'm surprised you picked out Toran Davis. Yes, he failed to make the tackle, but so did a lot of others. Laseak lost contain on the QB, so that was what started the problem. Then Daugherty had his back to the play, and didn't realize it was a run until the QB had broken contain, turned the corner, and was already 5 yards upfield. Davis had a shot at him, and could have tackled him for a 12-14 yard gain, but Davis was stationary, and the QB had a full set of speed, and a man he used as a screen, so it would have been a tough tackle for Davis. I give more blame to Laseak and Daugherty on that play than to Davis.

The next one, the link seems to be wrong. It takes me to a bad interception by Sprague, not a play by davis.

Then comes the non-tackle by Wells. I can't argue that he didn't get the job done.