In his first year as Ohio State’s defensive coordinator, last spring was supposed to be a big opportunity for Kerry Coombs to add new concepts to the Buckeyes’ defensive scheme and get his unit ready for the 2020 season.
Instead, the Buckeyes had just three spring practices before players were sent home for three months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the missed practice time was certainly evident last fall.
Ohio State’s defense was shaky all season – particularly against the pass, as the Buckeyes allowed more than 300 passing yards per game – and that culminated with Alabama putting up 621 yards of offense against the Buckeyes in a 52-24 national championship game rout.
Coombs made it clear on Friday, the first time he’s taken questions from reporters since the national championship game loss, that he bears responsibility for the Buckeyes’ defensive issues last season and specifically in that game – and, of course, for improving the defense in 2021.
“I feel very responsible that we didn’t play our best in that environment,” Coombs said following the Buckeyes’ first spring practice of 2021. “And I want to make sure I say: When we didn’t play our best, that’s on me. That’s my job. And so it was very painful. It was awful. And that hasn’t happened to us very much here. It just doesn’t.
“You want to be at your best. And obviously we weren’t. So that was very hard. Anybody who says it wasn’t hard doesn’t care. And then yeah, it makes you rethink how you do things. And there’s no question that this entire offseason has been a great process of exactly that. Rethinking how we do things and how we’re going to do things in the future.”
The good news for Coombs and the Buckeyes is they should have a full offseason, including 15 spring practices, to make their defense better this year.
Because Coombs didn’t have as many opportunities to work with his players in person last year, he didn’t install all the schematic concepts he had planned to. Coombs said last April that he thought “it would be foolish to try to teach new concepts and ideas over a computer screen,” and he reiterated Friday – while speaking to reporters over Zoom, as media members still aren’t allowed inside the Woody Hayes Athletic Center due to COVID-19 protocols – that he believes that’s a challenge.
As long as Ohio State can avoid further coronavirus outbreaks within the program this offseason, however, there should be many more opportunities for Coombs to coach the defense on the field and meet with players in person.
“I’ve done this Zoom, and I love the fact that we’re able to do it – it was a great answer for the situation – but the reality is, that’s not real teaching now,” Coombs said. “It’s very hard to teach in the manner which we do, with direct teaching and back-and-forth feedback from the players and communication and to be able to do that in this environment. We all know there’s a pause, and you guys got a cell phone on your desk and you peek at that, and we shouldn’t expect that our players are any different than you guys are.
“And so, for me, being able to look them in the eye and then do it on the field. That’s the thing you miss. And I think those opportunities, in addition to having Coach (Mickey) Marotti be able to work with guys in all of this offseason time, makes significant difference in their bodies. So it’s not just the scheme, but it’s also their conditioning level, their ability to be in shape when they hit the field in the fall. But this opportunity for us to install what we want to install, and get practiced at it, and find out what we can do and what we can’t do in the package is important. It’s critical.”
Given all of that, there will likely be concepts added to Ohio State’s defensive scheme in 2021 that weren’t added in 2020 due to the pandemic. Asked if he could specify what changes we’d see from the Buckeyes’ defense this year, though, Coombs gave a succinct response: “Nope.”
“Really, why would I?” Coombs said.
With a schedule this fall that begins with a Big Ten game against Minnesota and a marquee non-conference game against Oregon, Ohio State isn’t going to volunteer much information about how its defensive scheme could look different this season until it has to. Asked if we could see more two-safety looks in 2021 rather than the single-high defense Ohio State has used primarily over the past two seasons, Coombs answered vaguely.
That said, he reiterated on multiple occasions in Friday’s press conference that he believes the key for the Buckeyes to improve their pass defense is to be able to play press man-to-man coverage effectively. Those struggles last season can be partially traced back to the disjointed offseason, too, as Coombs said the Buckeyes “only got seven sessions of real one-on-ones in the course of a year, and that’s very challenging.”
“I think that we’re gonna hang our hat, our first pitch if we’re standing on the mound, we’re throwing man-to-man,” Coombs said. “Now we’ve gotta be able to play it. That’s our fastball, that’s what we’ve gotta be able to do. So we’ve gotta be able to play that. And everything else kind of bleeds off of that. And so how much three-deep, how much split safety, how much of anything else we play kind of has to bleed off our ability to play man-to-man. And we have to be able to do that. Or then if we can’t, then we have to change what we do. But I think we’ve got the guys that can do it, and I like our chances.”
“This opportunity for us to install what we want to install, and get practiced at it, and find out what we can do and what we can’t do in the package is important. It’s critical.”– Kerry Coombs on the importance of spring to his defense
Coombs doesn’t think last year should be viewed as a total failure for his defense. After all, Ohio State won every game it played until the national championship game.. He thought the Buckeyes’ efforts to make it to the national championship game were “phenomenal,” with everything they had to overcome along the way, and said they’ll “be really happy” if they make it to the national championship game again this season.
Still, he doesn’t deny that his defense needs to be better in 2021 than it was in 2020. And he thinks they’ll be able to make that happen with more practice time this offseason.
“There were a lot of things that we did well. We just have to do other things better,” Coombs said. “To me I think, just more than anything, having a practice with the whole team here is really the biggest thing. And if we can get to that point consistently, I really like this team.”
