Opinion: Knowles is not OSU's Don Brown
There's been a lot of chatter about Knowles being "OSU's Don Brown". I think this is an insult to Don Brown. Recall that in 2016, Don Brown was brought in to stop Urban Meyer's spread. He did so, with great success, in 2016 and 2017. So much so, in fact, that Urban realized he had to switch or die.
Now, good for Urban, he did so, and our collective fanbase still has PTSD from what happened in 2018 and 2019.
But, the tides, they can be turned. And, with the odd blessing of the Covid year to find a new path, the Ravens D was brought in, and well we all know what happened next.
So, punch, counterpunch, counterpunch, etc.
But this year was supposed to be OSU's turn to counterpunch. They have MANY MANY talented players on defense. Indeed, there are few rosters that have a more highly rated defense than our dear friends down south. So, you'd think, all they need is competent defensive coordination to solve their problems.
Saturday, we saw the results. This was not a good defense. This was not a sound defense. This was a defense that repeatedly left receivers wide open. Then, when they backed off that failed approach, they got gashed, chunks of yards at a time. And, with a final terrible adjustment, OSU crowded the line again, which led directly to "The Don" and his 75- and 85-yard gallops.
Knowles is no Don Brown.
I guess time will tell. But right now, if Knowles is like some former D coordinator at UM, I think there is one more apt comparison:
Knowles is GERG.
All that's missing is a beaver to rub on players's faces.
What do you think?
November 30th, 2022 at 4:47 PM ^
Why? "Knowles is GERG" is sweet, sweet music to these ears.
November 30th, 2022 at 5:14 PM ^
knowles has a roster littered with 4 and 5 star talent.
greg robinson had NO such talent at michigan, hell he only had 28 scholarship players on this side of the ball! greg won 2 super bowls and later took texas' D from terrible to top notch with a properly stocked defense. oh yeah, and he died january 22nd. go ahead, make more fun of greg. really.
November 30th, 2022 at 5:35 PM ^
You do have a point that Greg Robinson had great success otherwise in his career and was in a situation that was stacked against him while at UM under RR.
However... the man rubbed a stuffed toy beaver in a player's face on national television. He is GERG, may he rest in peace.
November 30th, 2022 at 5:40 PM ^
True, but he also agreed to run a 3-3-5 that he had no clue how to run. In this sense what Knowles did on Saturday is comparable in some ways.
November 30th, 2022 at 5:47 PM ^
did not 'agree', ran what rich rod told him to run even though greg had never run that D before.
December 5th, 2022 at 12:31 PM ^
Oh yeah, I know the 3-3-5 was RR's deal, for some dumb reason. But when in the job interview RR says "You're going to come to Michigan and run my 3-3-5," GERG obviously has the option to say "Yanno. If I come I'm running what I run, or find someone else."
That's what I meant by "he agreed."
November 30th, 2022 at 6:36 PM ^
I’m with XM on this. Knowles ran the defenses he brought with him from the Big XII for the low, low price of $2M. His basic problem wasn’t a lack of talent, but the lack of talent and/or practice on alignments which could stop us on the ground without seriously compromising other aspects of his schemes. In one respect, his problems were the same as Don Brown’s; he didn’t grasp the extent of the pickle our sophisticated offense negated his defensive paradigm. OSU probably has the talent to run Illinois’s D, but that would have taken a lot of practice and better coaching of his backfield. It was a hasty “we need a band-aid STAT” decision by Day to hire the guy and give him Carte Blanche to throw his system at the problem and reflects an organizational lack of understanding of what it would take to undo years of taking their ability to ‘out-talent’ Michigan’s offense. They have paid in both blood and money to get this lesson, it will be until next year until they show if they learned anything.
November 30th, 2022 at 10:54 PM ^
Lol! Big 12 defense! That's a good one
November 30th, 2022 at 12:30 PM ^
Maybe yes, maybe no. I don’t know yet.
November 30th, 2022 at 12:33 PM ^
It's far too early to tell.
I do see a lot of people claiming that Knowles did not make adjustments in the 2nd half. He did make adjustments, that's why you saw our running game start to get some chunk yardage whereas they did not do that in the first half.
They sold out to stop the run in the first half and make JJ beat them through the air. They were successful at stopping the run (Michigan had 10 rushing yards at half) but JJ did beat them through the air, something they clearly did not anticipate.
November 30th, 2022 at 12:45 PM ^
Honestly it wasn't the worst plan. We hadn't done much through the air this year and they did hold us to 10 yards rushing in the first half.
November 30th, 2022 at 12:45 PM ^
Knowles did what he could to paper over a fundamental problem that simply couldn't be fixed in just 1 year: Ohio State can't match us in the run game.
When Knowles played a safe, smart defense, we marched down the field just like last year. When he tried to stop the run with extra men in the box, we threw it over their heads. He gambled and lost several times.
He found out the hard way that scheme is not Ohio State's issue. Their issue is not being to able to form a wall at the line of scrimmage using 5 guys or less, like we can do. Or like Illinois can do. You can't scheme around that, they need bigger stronger DT's and those don't grow on trees. They're built on the d-line to be big and fast, not big and immovable. Until they can rely on just 4 guys on the line of scrimmage to at least gunk up our blocks, they're screwed. They'll have to gamble or be unsound to stop us.
November 30th, 2022 at 1:10 PM ^
You can't scheme around that.
This is the answer right here. I don't know why so much of the narrative about this game is about OSU's failings. Is it that hard to believe that maybe Michigan is just that good? When Michigan's offense is executing at the level they did last Saturday, they are extremely hard to stop. Their run game forces you to commit more and more resources to the line of scrimmage, which leaves you vulnerable to being hit over the top. If those over-the-top hits connect, as they did on Saturday, then there's nothing left for the defense to do but tip its hat. Would bending instead of breaking have been strategically better? In a vacuum, perhaps, but if you're trying to play complementary football opposite the high powered OSU offense, taking a few gambles (and trusting your 5*s to make plays) seems like good coaching to me. The larger failings with OSU are in the meta: they are built to be an NFL squad and to make playoff runs, rather than being built specifically to destroy Michigan. Conversely, Michigan is now built specifically to destroy OSU. But there's nothing the in-game coaching on Saturday could have done about that.
November 30th, 2022 at 5:58 PM ^
I disagree that Ohio State is actually built to make playoff runs. They are average at the line of scrimmage and their defensive backfield is average at best. They may be trying to build a team to make a playoff run, but the last two at least have failed at that.
Their games against Oregon and Utah last year are non-M examples, and the exact issues they have today with Michigan also exist with Georgia if not even more extremely.
They are not built for the SEC or the playoffs, they are just an image of Ryan Day after you extract the Urban Meyer DNA from their program.
November 30th, 2022 at 1:14 PM ^
He found out the hard way that scheme is not Ohio State's issue.
I think you're right about this, but looking at the neck sharpies piece, it seems that the bigger issue is that the players seem to lack sound fundamentals. The players on defense missed a lot of assignments or went to the wrong gaps or attacked the wrong players. This is a player fundamental and position coaching issue more than a talent/body type issue.
November 30th, 2022 at 3:33 PM ^
I don't think being gap sound against Michigan is fundamental. Our offense is specifically designed to mess with gap assignments.
November 30th, 2022 at 3:57 PM ^
I think you're right about this, but looking at the neck sharpies piece, it seems that the bigger issue is that the players seem to lack sound fundamentals
This is what I was coming to say, too. But, in looking at the Matt and Seth Show piece, too, there's a bit of both. It looks like OSU's LBs are being coached, for example, to just crash gaps, which isn't a sound strategy. That said, on the scrape exchange on that last Edwards run, the crashing player hesitates even though he should KNOW he doesn't have to account for JJ.
For all the talk about toughness in this game the past two years, to be able to know your assignment and execute it when the pressure is ratcheted up... that's its own kind of toughness. Michigan has it. OSU doesn't.
November 30th, 2022 at 5:20 PM ^
I pondered that as well. I wonder how much was the roster still becoming comfortable in the new defense and assignments. They have athletes, but they just looked out of place unless they had numbers.
November 30th, 2022 at 7:23 PM ^
the thing is, what was the scheme that they paid 2m/yr for to beat Michigan? putting 8 in the box and run Czero? And in the 2nd half back off that after you get beat with 3 pig plays in the passing game?
So what was the adjustment? And how sound was that scheme he adjusted to? Couldn't have been that sound to give up two Don runs like that. He wouldn't have gotten tackled if it was 2 hand touch. Hell, no defender was close enough to even pull his flag!
That was some simp shit OSU ran out there defensively.
November 30th, 2022 at 3:11 PM ^
When Knowles played a safe, smart defense, we marched down the field just like last year.
Yes, in the excitement of the "5 TDs in 5 plays" story, people forget about the 15 play drive that ended in the JJ rushing TD. It looked just like one of last year's drives.
You have to pick your poison. But there will be poison.
November 30th, 2022 at 5:27 PM ^
This drive took 8 minutes off the clock and took Ryan Day's soul. There is a shot of him in the middle of that drive staring at the clock and his eyes say it all. He's feeling it slipping away.
November 30th, 2022 at 3:49 PM ^
Yes This is exactly my thinking. He lacks the players and had to try and cover for that with the scheme. We are skilled enough on offense to take advantage of unsound defenses. His hands were somewhat tied at that point. Let's see how he recruits before we write his eulogy.
November 30th, 2022 at 1:49 PM ^
I have a feeling UFR is going to show that their plan to stop the run would not have had the success it did, if BC and DE we're healthy or Stokes has a bit more experience. I think them crowding the box would not have worked. It did not work in second half even when they crowded because DE figured out how to run the ball with his left hand
December 1st, 2022 at 10:05 AM ^
There were at least two holes that CJ stokes missed early on that I'm confident Corum or fully weaponized DE hits and gets large chunks if not a long TD. Also DE not being able to split out and run real routes changed Michigan's offense a bit. So with healthy Corum and DE, this game likely just looks more like last year, or is the same result but the big first half plays are runs instead of passes.
November 30th, 2022 at 2:34 PM ^
Knowles tried to run Illinois' scheme against Michigan, but without Illinois' secondary. (I can't believe I am typing that. Ohio State looking up at Illinois. But it's true.)
November 30th, 2022 at 2:39 PM ^
They made some adjustments no doubt. However there are some things left out.
1st Half Run game, Blake 2 carries to show he couldn't go. Both had yds to gain, far more and a healthy Blake Corum blasts those. CJ Stokes, 2 carries, and he trips on one and runs to a defender on the other, not exactly representative of our starting rb's when healthy. Donovan Edwards was also quite heistant through the 1st qtr and you saw him when he finally takes some hits and start getting confident in his grip on the ball and his confidence overall back from the injury/cast being okay he starts running hard! These things are exactly true.
2nd, Knowles was determined to stop the run and prevent what happened in 2021, it's why he was hired! Spill and Kill was the motto, could have been speed in space or man ball or what ever other mottos came when coordinators are hired for a purpose....
3rd, Ryan Day and Jim Knowles both felt the game plan was working and were willing to live with a couple long plays when they gave up the plays to JJ, they didn't think he could make them, let alone 3 of them and have 3 others be very close or a PI called.. They never thought that would happen but counted on JJ not throwing down field well even in the 2nd half. Hence, there were many plays where the safeties were in the box or coming down hard into the box at the snap.
Donovan Edwards/Oline and Run game, as Edwards started running harder and harder, the carries were getting positive and osu started committing to the box and run blitzing even more. But still there were 3, 6, 12, 4yd run plays all positive against a loaded box. But when Michigan went up by 11pts and the defense had already stopped OSU on 4th and 2 in the 1st half and played great short yd defense on the first few drives of the 2nd half, they punted and fell behind. This is important when considering that even against a loaded box, the blocking adjustments took care of some run blitzing by osu and Knowles got so aggressive there was no back safeties.
Michigan adjustment on their blitz, Instead of trying to get outside, kick the DE and outside blitzers outside of the de and block the interior and lbers, the safeties already took themselves out of the play..... 75yds later, TD, exposed, couldn't stop the run when they had to and Michigan's staff made a great adjustment. Next series, Knowles same thing, no safeties, outside and inside pressure, all out, still, kickout the DE blitzing, force the outside bliter to stay outside the de... both upfield.. Safeties to far down hill to see or recover, one broken/missed tackle, 85 yds, TD, SEE YA!!!!
December 1st, 2022 at 12:20 AM ^
I really think it was UM executing blocks better in the 2nd half vs. Knowles changing anything.
November 30th, 2022 at 12:34 PM ^
Knowles has had 1 year. I'm not sure anything definitive can really be said yet.
We beat them soundly, but their defense improved from last year. Honestly, I'd prefer not to play them again this year and find out what adjustments he can make.
November 30th, 2022 at 12:34 PM ^
I think i've reached my breaking point on seeing useless, stupid threads that bring nothing other than the random thoughts of someone to the front page of the board. Kinda like when you're sitting at a bar trying to watch a game when some idiot drunk plops down next to you and refuses to shut the fuck up and all they offer is insight roughly the same as my 80 year old father would offer which is to say none at all. And at the same time on your other side is someone who actually understands the game and would be very interesting to talk to cant get a word in edgewise because the idiot drunk wont shut up for 10 seconds.
That's what I think.
November 30th, 2022 at 12:43 PM ^
A pretty snazzy opinion that I agree with.
November 30th, 2022 at 12:44 PM ^
I'm not drunk, if that helps.
November 30th, 2022 at 12:49 PM ^
Snowflaky?
November 30th, 2022 at 12:53 PM ^
It might be a good idea for you to log off MGoBlog for a day or two and go watch the highlights from Saturday rather than commenting on multiple board posts about authors not meeting your standards this week.
November 30th, 2022 at 1:05 PM ^
At 8:30 last night another user created an MgoMeet up thread that was full of very useful information for people (like me) who are going to the game and are unfamiliar with downtown Indy. In it were bars for watch world cup on Saturday, best places to watch the pep rally and dinner recomendations from locals who know. Unfortunately there have been 38 new threads created since that post with over half being ones like this one "here are my thoughts on things" which can easily be stated inside any one of the other 10 or so threads on whatever topic the OP was thinking about. Sadly another poster who's done some work analyzing Purdue doesnt want to post it yet because he knows that content will fall off the front page in about 10 minutes at the rate we're creating new threads.
All I'm asking for is a smidge of self-control on new threads. Do you not agree with that?
November 30th, 2022 at 1:44 PM ^
I agree!
I've been waiting to post this thing I just thinked. But I can't yet because nobody will know that I thought it with all the other threads on here. And there's a pretty good chance the coaches haven't even thunk it yet. I don't want them to miss it.
jk. It is pretty crazy in here right now!
November 30th, 2022 at 7:19 PM ^
An informational, timely post like the one you are referring to should absolutely be stickied.....
November 30th, 2022 at 1:07 PM ^
100% agree. I get it, everyone is excited that we (team) won. But does it necessitate a random post every day?
November 30th, 2022 at 1:16 PM ^
I'm about there myself, mGrow.
Though I'm not sure where Seth and LSA stand on the issue, I've felt, ever since The Game, that I'd take a somewhat hand-off approach to deleting threads other than the slam-dunk worst ones, allowing everyone to celebrate for a few days.
Now that we're slightly over three days out from Saturday's B1G Championship Game, I will be more proactively deleting the fluff.
And I WON'T be taking Friday off to prepare for Saturday's Championship Game.
November 30th, 2022 at 1:51 PM ^
Uh-oh, it happened. 
November 30th, 2022 at 2:05 PM ^
There are over 40 comments, many folks engaging the OP in conversation regarding his take on Knowles.... so maybe not everyone shares your ire for starting conversations that don't meet your lofty expectations.
Its really easy to just scroll on by.... no one can make you click on the next title that shows up on message board, you do that all on your own....
November 30th, 2022 at 7:23 PM ^
There are over 40 comments, many folks engaging the OP in conversation regarding his take on Knowles.... so maybe not everyone shares your ire for starting conversations that don't meet your lofty expectations.
They hypocritically bitch about the value of a thread by posting a three to five word comment that adds nothing to the thread. "This thread sux!" more or less. I know those are the valuable comments that add oh so much to threads. Brilliant logic there. Maybe they think when the 5,000th comment in that vein is posted, everything will magically resolve itself!
Its really easy to just scroll on by.... no one can make you click on the next title that shows up on message board, you do that all on your own....
The fact that you had to point that out...
In addition: "But, but, but...those threads knock the important ones off the front page!" They're too lazy to go to the second page, third page, etc? Having to spend 60-90 seconds to scroll through each previous page and pick out the threads that interest them is a major inconvenience, apparently.
December 1st, 2022 at 8:10 AM ^
What matters is they care enough to stop by and drop a comment.... even if its witless criticism.
November 30th, 2022 at 2:42 PM ^
It happened last year too. But it beats the alternative.
I can live with it. Think of all the years when there was nothing good/fun/giddy to say after The Game. If you amortize all of these excitable posts over 20 years, they're really not so bad.
I am on record as being perfectly OK with this next year too, if it is for the same reason.
In any case, it calms down significantly after the BTCG.
Let the kids play in the living room for awhile.
December 1st, 2022 at 8:24 AM ^
This is the arrogance that leads to snowflake threads; you know, let's force everything into one bin because my god otherwise we're going to have SEVERAL different threads! Oh the horror!
November 30th, 2022 at 12:35 PM ^
Don Brown had a hell of a lot of talent on that 2016 defense. Most DCs could make that unit look good. It started to tail off at around the 2018 OSU game. From there until the end of 2020, the defense progressively got worse.
November 30th, 2022 at 12:37 PM ^
Was it due to a lack of recruiting? Lack of development? I guess the answer is somewhere in between.
November 30th, 2022 at 12:57 PM ^
Well remember we played Ben Mason at DT in 2019 vs. Wisconsin and at one point had Jordan Glasgow lined up as a DT…
November 30th, 2022 at 7:23 PM ^
It was as if big, beefy DTs were not wanted in that era. At a place like Boston College, sure, you might have trouble attracting top DTs, and you might have to finagle around that.
At Michigan, that is not the case. As we see presently with Graham especially, but also the others.
November 30th, 2022 at 12:35 PM ^
Should we do a kickstarter to send a furry wolverine plush to Knowles?