We've all seen comments in the Spring Practice videos about how pumped up the defense is, and how they are more aggressive this year, and there was a specific mention of "attack and react". I think that's a good thing, and I have done some thinking about how a more aggressive defense might affect the overall game.

Under Burrow the defense has been primarily a bend-but-don't break style defense. It has been pretty consistently effective at keeping big scores by the foes off the board, and Ohio has been one of the top defenses in the MAC year in and year out.  It was especially effective when paired with the grind-it-out I-formation where it created games that were long, hard-fought positional battles.

A few years ago, however, the offense started playing no-huddle, and more hurry up, and shifted away from the grind-it-out offense. It has struck me for awhile that there was a fundamental mismatch between the offensive and defensive strategies. A punishing offense may not score every time, but they usually hold the ball awhile, and at least get a few first downs. Paired with a bend-but-don't-break defense, the goal is for the offense to consistently get a few more first downs than the defense gives up. Then you slowly but surely win the battles of possession and field position, and you wear down the other team's defense while keeping your own defense relatively fresh, and in the end, you win the fourth quarter, and you win the game.

Once they started running the no-huddle offense, keyed more around passing, something significant changed. First, the offense sometimes scored much more quickly, or alternately, gave the ball back more quickly. With a grinding offense, let's say that an average Ohio drive was 8 plays, while the average foe drive was 7 plays. Over a full game that seemingly small difference would mean that Ohio would be the fresher team at the end, and that they would win the battle of field position, and time of possession, and usually that they would win the game.

Now let's say that Ohio's average drives dropped from 8 plays to 6 because of more quick-strike TD's and more 3 and outs (I haven't actually looked this up). Meanwhile the defense continued to give up an average drive of 7 plays. Now, at the end of the game, the foe would be the fresher team, and the foe would be more apt to win the fourth quarter.  What happens if you hurry up more? It only gets worse. The defense ends up back on the field earlier, and they end up more tired at the end of the game.

This problem has been developing over the last few years, and Ohio managed to win a lot of games despite it. The coaches have been reacting to it, though. They slowed up the offense (which some fans didn't like), and rarely ran the no-huddle at full speed. Slowing up it up did help a lot, because it kept the defense fresher. They also tried, last year, having the defensive line be much more aggressive, to try to get more quick stops on defense. The result of that was not good, however. Yes, they got more sacks and TFL, but they also created big holes, and gave up far, far more rushing yardage. While many were critical of the offense last year, I still maintain that the problem last year was the defense, which was far worse that the defense normally has been under Burrow.

Now, it seems from the Spring videos and the comments of those at the Spring game, that the rest of the defense will join the DL in being more aggressive. What result can we expect from that? My expectation is that they will no longer give up an automatic 3 yards on rushing plays, and 5-8 yards on passes. They will continue to get a lot of sacks, perhaps more than last year, but they will also have a lot of stuffs of running plays for no gain, and the defense will get a lot more 3-and-outs.

Will they sometimes get burned because of their aggression? Yes, I expect that this will happen. It's a cost of being aggressive, but worth it in my opinion, because of the impact it will have on the game management. The result will be that the defense will no longer give up many punishing, long, time consuming drives. Instead they will get a lot of  3-and-outs, and give up a few quick TD's. Either way they won't be on the field a long time, and the offense will be back out there quickly. Thus my expectation is that games will have more possession changes. The offense will get more cracks at scoring, and the defense will get more cracks, too. With an aggressive defense it suddenly makes MUCH more sense to actually speed up the offense, because you know that even if the offense fails to get a first down, it won't be long before they are on the field again. Now they can attack fast, and still end up with more plays, and wearing down the foe, rather than vice versa. Now they can once again win the fourth quarter.

What other changes will this make? With more changes of possession, special teams will be more important than ever. I expect highers scores. I expect punts, punt returns, kickoffs, and kickoff returns to all be more frequent. I also expect more plays per game, and probably more turnovers. I expect a fast paced, exciting game that will appeal to fans.

Did you read his post, Monroe? He offers a reasonable opinion that last year's offensive woes may have been directly related to our style of defense. 

Robert--If our O coordinator was asked about the offense's poor performance last year and offered as an excuse the way that the D played, would you accept that?

Under Solich, Ohio has now had 6 bowl teams. Looking at the statistics of those six teams:

Average Off Yds/Game - 363.9
2013 Off Yds/Game - 379.4 (slightly above average)
Average Off Pts/Game - 26.9
2013 Offensive Pts/Game - 27.4 (slightly above average)

Average Def Yds/Game - 360.1
2013 Def Yds Given Up/Game - 405.8 (worse than average)
Average Def Pts/Game - 22.9
2013 Def Pts Given Up/Game - 27.5 (much worse than average)

The offense last year was actually above average. Though it was not as high as 2011 and 2012, it was well above 2006, 2009, and 2011. The defense, however, was where you find the difference. The two go hand in hand, though. Had the defense been better last year, the offense would have had more plays, and more yards. Furthermore, in games like Louisville and BG, the defense let things get out of hand early, taking the offense out of it's game plan.

Given that the old saying is "defense wins championships", I could take the reverse position, and say "it's just no concern what the O does; the D gotta get it done". I won't go that far because really, both matter, but I will say that the reason last year's team was not as good as the other bowl teams was primarily due to the defensive failures. Furthermore, I think the defense knows it, and based on the Spring Ball results, they aren't going to let it happen again.

Exactly my point! If the offense is going to play hurry up, the defense needs to be aggressive. If they defense is going to play bend-but-don't-break, the offense needs to be able to grind things out.


As Robert picked up, my point is that the offense and defense need to work together towards a common goal. Strategy goes beyond just offensive strategy and defensive strategy as separate items. The two have to work together to accomplish a cohesive game management strategy. When you change one, it has effects on the other. Yes, conditioning is important, but all teams attempt to condition. To win the fourth quarter you also have to have a game strategy that is conducive to that result.

Let me try to make my point more clear. In football, Offenses generally wear down defenses, not the reverse. Thus, the team whose offense is on the field more is more apt to wear the other team out, and thus to win the fourth quarter. Let's look at an extreme hypothetical situation. Suppose you had an offense that did nothing but throw long bombs. Let's say that they always come out and throw 3 long passes. On 1/3 of the possessions they score, the rest they punt, but there are never any drives, only 3 plays, and done. Now, match that with a defense that on average gives up 6 play drives. The defense will be on the field 6 plays for every 3 that the offense is on the field. Regardless of conditioning, the defense will most likely get worn down, and the opposing defense will not get worn down. Therefore this absurd strategy would be unsound.

How do you prevent this? Some ideas:
1. Obviously, as you point out, you try to start with better conditioning, but that isn't a complete answer.
2. Another way is to slow down the offense, giving the defense more time to rest.
3. It also helps if the offense has sustained drives. You can have ball control drives with passing as well as running.
4. You improve defensive depth, and do more rotation
5. You make the defense be more aggressive, trying for more quick stops.

I have little doubt that Ohio does try to improve conditioning, but so do all teams. Last year we also saw Ohio slow the offense down, and I am sure that was intentional (and wise). We also see a mix of control passing with the running, trying to sustain drives. In recent years we have seen Ohio doing more rotation on defense, too. Finally, last year we saw Ohio last year get more aggressive on the line, trying for more sacks. The latter thing didn't work effectively, however, because the result was giving up long runs.

For next year, I think they have made some changes to the defense, to make the linebackers and secondary more aggressive as well as the line, and I think it will result in more quick stops. I also think that the defensive depth will be exceptional, so there will be an excellent ability to rotate players. The result that I expect is that there will be far less need to slow the game down, so I think the offense will open things up a bit, and go faster.

Spoke with Devin Bass after the Spring game he says the new defense is something they shouldve had for years..corners locked in jamming wideouts ,strict gap responsibility and just attacking taking advantage of Ohio's athletes.

The old cliche is that the best offense is a good defense.  But the defense is best when the offense isn't doing three and outs all the time.  Our D had a problem with big O lines last season, especially late in games.  One reason was our offense wasn't moving the ball, and the D was spending too much time on the field.  Whether you're running two plays a minute or four, if you're not moving the ball you're not helping the D.

I didn't mean to not give you a direct answer, so I apologize for the delay. I saw the EMU, Buffalo, and Kent games, and a portion of EMU, so it was closer to 25% of the games. In the play I saw at times the offense was better than others, but the defense was rarely good, the exception being the first half against Buffalo.

Here are some stats from the last few years. To make it easier to see, I bolded the above average years in each category.
    Record  *********Offense*************     *********Defense*************
           Yds/gm  Pts/Gm  Plays  Yds/Play   Yds/gm  Pts/gm  Plays  Yds/Play
2013  7-6  379.4    27.4    887    5.56      405.8    27.5    918     5.75
2012  9-4  444.8    31.7    998    5.79      388.8    24.8    941     5.37
2011 10-4  446.4    30.5   1027    6.09      361.4    22.1    962     5.26
2010  8-5  326.1    27.5    768    5.52      353.4    23.8    866     5.31
2009  9-5  310.1    24.8    857    5.07      348.5    21.3   1002     4.87
2008  4-8  361.4    24.1    778    5.57      348.6    27.2    819     5.11
2007  6-6  362.8    30.5    816    5.34      407.5    29.9    902     5.42
2006  9-5  276.6    19.7    856    4.52      302.9    18.1    870     4.87

Things that I notice here:
1. 2013 Offense got the 3rd most yards/game and 4th highest yds/play in the last 7 years. Yes, it was "above average", but not by much.
2. Offensive output does not correlate well with wins. While the two best offenses (2011,2012) produced good records, it is also true that the two years with the worst offenses (2006, 2009)  are 2 of the 3 years with MAC East Championships.
3. Defensive performance does correlate well with wins, especially points/game given up. The four years with the best defenses in terms of points/game include all three of the MAC East championships, while the three worst years in that measure are the three year with the worst records. The 5 years with the best records are the 5 years with the best defense.
4. In all years except 2011 and 2012 the opponents ran more plays than Ohio. This is interesting, and unexpected.
5. The defensive trend in yards given up per play is distinct, and in the wrong direction. It must be reversed.

Conclusion:

I believe that 2014 will have the best defensive line yet under Solich (not necessarily the best individual players, but from end to end, on both first and second team, very good players), and good defense starts up front. I also believe there is excellent depth at the other positions. I also believe that the schematic issues with the defense have been solved, and that therefore the 2014 Bobcats will be an excellent defense. Given the data above, it therefore follows that I expect them to to win games regardless of the offense. I expect the offense to struggle at first, and improve as the season goes on, but in the meantime I think the defense will keep them in the game. I care less about how "good" the offense is than whether the offense "Believes" and is "Relentless". If the Offense never gives up, and they just keep coming, possession after possession, they may not rack up as many yards as some other Ohio teams have, but they will get yards when yards are needed to win games.

The problems with spring games is they lead to this question. Was the defense that good or the offense that bad? We're those 4 picks the product of great play, or poor play? August will tell us and Spring will give the staff a yard stick. Love the background of the new O-Line coach, I see this as a major upgrade.

ding ding ding.  Bcat2 hit it on the nose.  The most physical team usually wins the game (if they don't self destruct).  So, if you can run the ball effectively (not Beau up the middle) and stop the run (name any guy that got 125+ yards against us) you have the best chance to win.  Let's hope our line play on both sides of the ball steps up this year.  Being cute on O or D only gets you so far!