Opinion: Knowles is not OSU's Don Brown

This one game has prompted the greatest number of overreactions I have seen in years, from concluding that Knowles sucks, to Day should be fired (or at least give up play calling), to Stroud is a loser because he has not beaten Michigan (notwithstanding the Bucks defense was scorched in each game).  Maybe in another couple years we will know if Knowles sucks and Day has failed, but not yet.

Doesn't need a comparison.  He sucks.  That is the Buckeyes problem.  Fuck em.

This place is turning into Reddit with all the new threads that are coming out seemingly every 20 minutes. But if that's the price of winning, well then so be it!

Don Brown got exposed when he couldn't pressure with 4.

I think we hit harder and we won the tactical battle on Saturday.

But this may be another 10 year war, and Knowles has a track record.  I think we enjoy the hell out of this, but not get too smug.

We may have to play them again in a month. I like our chances, but I don’t expect cover one and eight in the box next time

I said something similar to this when I heard it Saturday. Calling him their Don Brown is unfair to Don Brown, since his defenses at Michigan were decent for a couple years until teams figured out his scheme and he didn't adjust, whereas Knowles just sucks right off the bat.

I think Knowles (1 game sample size) and the bad years of Brown had one major thing in common -- they asked guys to do things they couldn't do.

Know your personnel. Brown's D worked at first bc he had the DBs to cover in space, as well as the pass rushers to speed up the process. He kept trying to do it when he didn't have the horses, and it failed miserably. Knowles clearly didn't have the DBs to do what he was trying to do on Saturday. Maybe that's bc they have bad players. Maybe that's bc they've only had one season of his coaching (think of how long it took Harbaugh's offensive line to finally work as a unit -- he wanted to play manball but it took years of recruiting and teaching to have a plus unit). 

I think that this was a great post, but am quite relieved, for I thought OSU has MANY MANY MANY talented players on D, not just MANY MANY...

Kidding aside, I had Brown in a bad light, and this ameliorates my view on his D.... but the ameoba is still better because its adaptable.

Jury is still out IMO.... The narrative around every national pundit or anyone having a take on the game is he made no adjustments or refused to which is pretty Brown like. When in actuality is not true whatsoever. After the Loveland TD he adjusted and Michigan slammed it down their face 15 plays 10 runs and scored. At that point he had no choice other then to gamble take chances and hope for a game swaying play. Facing a young QB even though he's dropped 4 TD's on your head to that point I still think its the right call hoping you entice JJ into a big big mistake. Should he have adjusted sooner? Beyond question and I think he'd be first to admit that. If he plays Michigan with that asinine game plan next season then we can start calling him Brown. Brown new the limitations of his scheme especially against better personnel and stuck with it anyway. Cost him his job  

Your opinion has been overruled *bangs gavel*

His defense is sound. An unsound defense is a defense that, for example, doesn't have a contain player by design. For Knowles, he simply doesn't have the players that can execute their assignments. Was Cornelius Johnson accounted for on his 75 yard corner-post? On paper, 100%. On the field? lol, nope. And on the Edwards runs, every gap was accounted for...on paper. Desperate OSU players voiding gaps or getting shoved into the wrong gap is not Jim Knowles's fault. And I don't care if you are running zero safeties, three safeties, 3-3-5, 4-2-5, 6-2, Bear, etc.  If a player in the front fucks up a gap, you're fucked. (Recall the long Chase Brown TD against us just a couple weeks ago. Does it mean Jesse Minter's defense was unsound that play? Not at all.)

While his D may have stunk up the joint in big games, think we might owe Coach Brown a little thanks.  Because of his efforts in NE, look at players who played BIG on Saturday:  Mike Sainristil. Cornelius Johnson.  Scoon. Zinter.  Mullings. Hell, TJ Guy made the tackle on the opening KO. All NE that Brown recruited.  

The above comments/consensus says it's too soon to tell.

Don Brown got stubborn about his scheme and it was a my way or the highway approach, especially after more than just OSU figured him out.

Jim Knowles won't last that long if he has that same attitude. Next season will tell the story.

Knowles isn't GERG because he's running a defense he wants to, he's not a 3-3-5 D he had no knowledge about his HC wanted him to install. 

This is a HAWT TAKE if I've ever seen one.

Knowles is a good coach. I don't know if he's a great coach, but his top ten unit last year at Oklahoma State counts for something (even if it was a down Big 12 year offensively and his team was loaded with seniors and superseniors).

The problem is, as Sam Webb put it, you went to the Big 12 of all places to fix your defense and stop, primarily, a team that isn't anything close to resembling the offenses of the Big 12.  That's how you get them giving up the most points to your rival since the Truman administration despite said team missing it's best offensive player and having a one-armed RB in for most of the game. 

I would still say it's an upgrade over Kerry Coombs, but that really isn't saying much at this point... that "super bad" Kerry Coombs defense was good enough for OSU to win 10+ games anyway. 

I mean, it is just the first year in the system. Likely OSU will be able to recruit DBs that are all good enough to play his system unlike what Michigan was able to do under Brown.

Knowles thought we were a one-trick pony until we brought the cavalry. 

Our 2016 and 2017 defense was littered with NFL draft picks. OSU had JT Barrett.

OSU has a couple nice pieces on defense, but you can't compare the two defenses. And you can't compare JT and JJ.

It is easy to say he merely sold out and we beat loaded boxes with deep throws, but we also scored on 3 high safeties as well, and beat their defense after they made their adjustments. They made some scheme mistakes, but the players also were just not ready to defend Michigans offense at all.

In the fourth quarter when Day said to Knowles: "Jim, get Michigan off the field as quickly as possible!" . . . he should have been more specific.

Jim One-and-Out Knowles.

I was quite shocked watching highlights (over and over and over...) how OSU just buried their linebackers and safeties in the LOS a ton of times. None more egregious than Donovan's 85 yard TD to ice the game. Like...you can stop 3rd & 3 without human wave attacking the LOS. All it takes is one blown gap and you gave up a TD and that's exactly what happened. Bizarre gameplan and I hope Day and Knowles stay in Columbus for a while

I noticed that JJ put a LOT more air under his passes in this game than he did in the previous games when he was missing long throws . . . the first long pass to Bell, the TD bomb to CJ, the TD pass to Loveland, the pass to the back of the end zone that got the PI, and so on.

They were all passes on high arcs that were also a little bit short.  It was obviously on purpose.

I don't know if he was coached to do that this week, or if the weather was nice enough to finally let him do it, or what.  But it was quite noticeable (and successful!)

If JJ starts connecting on long passes regularly, hoo boy, this offense will cook.

To hell with Knowles........I want a beaver rubbed on my face!

Ohio State is 11-1.  That's very good, and no one can say Knowles didn't bring with him aggressiveness, competence and strategy to the Buckeyes defense this year.  In that context Knowles was a massive upgrade from the Kerry Coombs debacle.

Ohio State did not respect JJ McCarthy, nor Michigan's receivers at all.  That was a big mistake.  They put 8 to 9 guys in the box - which for Knowles had to be the most un-Big 12 thing ever. I can't imagine he's had much experience with that tactic at all, at least nothing good that lasted. And it didn't.  Michigan made Ohio State pay for it.

What surprised me from the game is that Knowles had no one spying JJ McCarthy runs; and that Ohio State's secondary is so terrible.  Iowa, Illinois and Maryland fielded muc better secondaries this year year by many orders of magnitude.  I don't understand how that can occur if Ohio State is napalming the recruiting landscape on a habitual and perennial basis.  They looked completely lost out there.  That's entirely on Knowles and Day.

This did not need to be an OP. 

Don Brown's defensive game plan  in 2018 and 2019 was insulting. That's what I think 

Generally agree. Don Brown I think gets a lot of shit here for the collapse of Michigan and I think some of that is earned but a lot of it is not. Alas, much of that is for a different post. As for Knowles, he lacks the right players to beat UM right now in my opinion. His scheme for The Game was an acknowledgement of that. To beat UM you need Big Powerful DTs and really smart, sound tackling, and fast Safeties. I don't think they really have either of those right now and lacking those they have to make major compromises with their scheme to be successful. 

In a way, this was similar to Don Browns issue toward the end of his tenure. He couldn't or wouldn't recruit DTs and our whole line and linebacking corps had to cover for that. I bet if Knowles had DTs that could win those blocks at the line he plays a totally different scheme and has more success against us. 

Last night I dreamed OSU hired Jim Leonhard for DC. I woke up in a cold sweat.

I think your mistaken both there D are allot alike predictable as hell.  

I figured I’d open this thread and there’d be a picture of a guy setting at a table with a sign that says “prove me wrong”. 

How much of this is talent being 4-5 star on paper but performing below recruiting rating. I don't really see a true superstar on D like Chase Young, Bosa brothers, Ukudah, Ward, Lattimore, etc.

That DL who had the career day vs. PSU was non-existent. Where was Zach Harrison, 5 star guy. Or Jack Sawyer, another 5-star.

Like him or not (I don't because he double-crossed us twice) but Mattison could take the 4 and 5 star guys and bring them up to be superstars whether at UM or Ohio (except for Pipkin who got injured at UM).

Fair to say that Knowles failed his first big test badly - but this should be motivation enough for next year to be better prepared. I don't think we keep getting 40+ on them fir years to come, like Ohio would have scored 50+ on us for years to come under DB.

What Joel Klatt said about UM after 2018 62-39 loss is right - UM went out to be the better O and D line and be content to drive the ball and force others to drive 10+ plays to score. Look back at Ohio last year, just one short drive (less than 6 plays). Rest of the drives we made them work and work to get even a FG.

I think we should give our team credit for making plays. Their defense did a decent job for much of the game but then JJ made that great hot route to CJ and the rest of the game opened up. True OSU busted but our guys had to make the plays to make them pay.

How are people defending Knowles? He's awful. That game plan was basically stick everybody up at the line and hope.

Frankly, they should have lost by more.

I love Jim Knowles D schemes.  They are perfect for the Buckeyes and facing Big 12 offenses.  Keep up the good work, and, please don’t change a thing…

I mean, Don Brown had some really good defenses for a number of years at Michigan before it all went to shit against OSU.  He was even good against OSU for a number of years.  Knowles hasn’t even had that kind of success at OSU.

goodness gracious, i had totally (and happily) forgotten everything about GERG...