Ryan Day issued a challenge to Larry Johnson and his defensive line following Saturday’s win over Tulsa.
After Golden Hurricane quarterback Davis Brin threw for 428 yards in the contest, the Buckeye head coach said he’d “like to see a little bit more of a pass rush” from his defense – a request that could hardly have been uttered in the midst of Chase Young’s record-setting 2019 campaign, or even after the dominant play of Jonathon Cooper and Tyreke Smith helped shut Clemson down in the second half of the 2021 Sugar Bowl.
Day said the line must do a better job of making opposing quarterbacks uncomfortable, and given that Ohio State has a grand total of four sacks through three games – and that only 22 teams in the country have fewer – it’s easy to see why.
“No excuse. We gotta get to the quarterback,” Ohio State defensive line coach Larry Johnson said at Tuesday’s press conference. “Our guys know that, my room knows that, I know that. I don’t sleep well when we can’t get pressure on the quarterback, because that’s what we gotta do. If we do that, we’ll change the game. We’ll change the game immediately, and that’s what we’re gonna going forward, look to find ways to get to the quarterback. That means changing personnel, putting the right guys on the field to get it done. But the bottom line is we gotta get it done, and it starts with me.”
Even with three former five-star recruits on the roster at the defensive end position, all but one of Ohio State’s sacks this year have come from linebacker Cody Simon and defensive tackles Antwuan Jackson and Tyleik Williams.
The Williams sack was a crucial one, as the true freshman took Brin down on a fourth-quarter third down in which Tulsa still had the opportunity to tie the game with a touchdown. The play was enough to make Williams the lone member of Ohio State’s defensive line that graded out as a champion after Saturday's performance, even though he didn’t start the game and logged just 22 snaps.
“My grading system’s really tough. To make a champion, you gotta meet all the standards,” Johnson said. “It’s more than just playing, it’s just technique and everything involved in the game is more important to me than just guys making plays. Making plays is really cool, and I think that’s what we should do production-wise, but also there’s technique things that have to be improved on. Tyleik played really well for a guy that played 22 plays – there were some guys close to being champion, I just felt that I needed to see more.”
With Johnson admitting he’s willing to try out no shortage of personnel combinations, Williams was the first name on his list of players that will see more time going forward.
The same goes for class of 2021 five-star defensive end J.T. Tuimoloau, who played a season-high 45 snaps Saturday when starting pass rusher and team captain Zach Harrison was sidelined with an injury. Johnson said Harrison is expected to return to the fold this week, but that doesn’t mean Tuimoloau will see any less time. Johnson said the true freshman will likely see his snaps increase to 50-55 depending on the game.
Expect to see more of J.T. Tuimoloau at DE, Larry Johnson said Tuesday:
— Griffin Strom (@GriffinStrom3) September 21, 2021
"Last week was his biggest week, he played 45 plays. We'll continue to increase that probably up to 50, 55, depends on the game. We'd like to see more from him as we start to go forward."
Harrison was named the Buckeyes’ defensive player of the game against Minnesota for recording a game-changing strip sack that led to a scoop-and-score touchdown for returning All-American defensive tackle Haskell Garrett. Garrett was adamant after Ohio State’s loss to Oregon that the Ducks avoided the typically vaunted pressure of the Buckeyes with an emphasis on getting the ball out as quickly as possible. Against Tulsa, though, Johnson said that wasn’t necessarily the case.
“Everything starts up front. I say it every time in my room, it’s not behind us, it’s what’s in front of us, and that’s us. And we have to find a way to generate that,” Johnson said. “For the quarterback to hold the ball 3.4 seconds – not a good deal. We have to get to the quarterback, we have to affect his throw.”
Johnson said his pass rushers have not had enough success in winning one-on-one matchups, and may need to vary their repertoire of techniques. Johnson said “you can’t bull rush a guy the whole entire game and think you’re gonna push him into the quarterback’s lap.”
That description in particular evokes a memorable play from the Buckeyes’ national championship-winning 2014 season, when Joey Bosa ended a double overtime affair with Penn State using such a move. The Bosa brothers are long gone from the program though, and so is Young. For the past two seasons, players like Harrison have fielded questions about becoming the next of their ilk, but no Buckeye has met that standard as of yet.
“Those guys were special athletes,” Johnson said. “If you go back to when they first started as freshmen, you saw flashes, but you didn’t see the flashes of who they were until later in their careers. You saw Chase take a shot sophomore, junior year, he takes off. Freshman year he was a good player. I didn’t coach Joey his freshman year, but Nick was the same thing. We part-timed Nick until he was ready to go. I think it’s a process you go through. I don’t think anybody can walk in here and say, ‘Hey, he’s ready to go, play him.’ I’m hoping someone can do that, but to me it’s a process of how you go.”
More time may be required for the likes of Tuimoloau and fellow five-star freshman Jack Sawyer, but Harrison is now a junior, Javontae Jean-Baptiste a redshirt junior and Smith a senior. Johnson said if players on his line aren’t flashing by their third year in his system, then “we’ve done something wrong coaching them.”
While defensive coordinator Kerry Coombs has taken the brunt of the blame for the Buckeyes' defensive woes up to this point, Johnson made sure to shoulder some himself on Tuesday.
“I won’t use the word disappointed because that’s not a good word. I think that there’s room for improvement, and that starts with the guy standing in front of you,” Johnson said. “We have to find a way to improve their skill set and get them going, and that’s what we’re gonna work on. We’ll spend all day and night figuring out why, but we’ll get it fixed and find a way to get those guys going forward. They’ve got a lot of pride in that room, they’re not sitting around smiling every day, they know that we have some work to do, and we gotta go to work. So that’s how you fix it.”
Even though the players in Johnson’s room have struggled to live up to the expectations set by their predecessors, the veteran defensive line coach doesn’t believe in blaming a drop-off in talent for the disparity in production.
“We’d love to have another first-round draft pick, but we have those guys, they’re here,” Johnson said. “They’re here, we just gotta continue developing.”
