The implosions were as rare as they were horribly timed.
The 1991 Buckeyes didn’t allow a single opponent to score more than 19 points right up until they handed Michigan 31 points and a Heisman. The 1993 edition had its brief flirtations with squishiness but largely shined, right up until the Wolverines showed up again.
One season later Penn State put up 63 on Ohio State, or nearly 40 more than any other opponent mustered that season. The dam broke again the following season when Tim Biakabutuka forced John Cooper to part ways with Bill Young, which, imagine if Ted Lasso had to fire Coach Beard and that’s basically how that felt for Coop.
He elevated Fred Pagac to the DC role and Ohio State’s defense transformed overnight with only one new significant personnel addition, freshman Andy Katzenmoyer. The Silver Bullets were born, and the Buckeye defense largely maintained the regular season standard right up until Urban Meyer missed a chance to play for the 2013 BCS title.
He brought in Chris Ash to change what wasn’t working, which was basically quarters with guys built to play it - a simple pivot to a new scheme. Ryan Day had a trickier challenge, coming off a pandemic delay compounded by inexact personnel to what the impending schematic change would require.
If it were mathematically possible, Michigan could have scored several 200-yard touchdowns last season in Columbus.
The defensive implosions over Day’s tenure have been just as rare and horribly timed as they were 30 years ago - and every bit as unacceptable. Coop’s legacy is what it became, but his defenses were bad isn’t part of it because of the decision he made after his generational 1995 offense was handicapped by what would eventually be coached up into becoming the Silver Bullets.
History is in syndication. That makes it is safe to go all-in on the 2023 Ohio State defense.
We've spent five years in the wilderness refusing to accept the Silver Bullets are fading from memory. Quick, name the last historically meaningful stop by that unit: Was it Tyvis Powell b-gapping Oregon into submission in Arlington?
Or maybe Tyvis ending Alabama's season in New Orleans? Tyvis canceling Michigan's 2-point conversion in Ann Arbor? Sure, there are other moments since, but they've been few, far between and faded into the ether. The 2016 Buckeyes had a walk-off sack in overtime at Madison and the 2017 Buckeyes capped a comeback for the ages against Penn State.
The point here is Tyvis is about to turn 30. The Silver Bullets are way past due and the groundwork to bring them back should be close enough to complete - which means it's time for realistic optimism. Ohio State’s defense hasn’t been clinching games for a long time.
Purdue Harbor 2018 was five seasons ago - that's how long it has been since we watched the Buckeye defense consistently lose and were like whew let's never do that again. Meyer's final two regular season games saw Ohio State’s defense allow 90 damn points, which were overshadowed the two wins those performances accompanied.
Then the 2019 Buckeyes barely allowed anyone to score 21 and that 2018 edition immediately felt like a glitch. Problem solved, Silver Bullets are back, another Chase Young will grow where the previous one used to be because that's just how Ohio State defenses operate.
Ohio State's run of defensive mediocrity will end in 2023 as its talent, scheme and execution all finally reach their potential.
Except it turned out 2019 was the glitch. Every defense since has performed as though it's the 2nd quarter in West Lafayette. So many drives have smelled like an incredibly stupid sequence of events is bound to materialize and cascade into an outing so traumatic that swearing off sports feels like the healthier option.
They rarely happen, but when they do - it’s the pre-Pagac era all over again.
If it were mathematically possible, Michigan could have scored several 200-yard touchdowns last season in Columbus. Not even math bends or breaks as badly as that defense did in its final three games when it allowed 117 points.
That's 75 points fewer than the 2019 defense allowed in all 14 games, which should mean we’ve now seen the bottom for that unit. The state of affairs is either unsustainable and will change dramatically, or the football program in Columbus must conclude there's mold, termites, demons and asbestos in the foundation and will tear the whole thing down.
Ryan Day has no interest in tolerating a Big XII defense.
I'm betting on unsustainable and will change. The Silver Bullets are back, or else.
Ohio State will have the best defense in the conference in 2023 and one worthy of making and clearing every CFP obstacle in its path. Screencap this take and prepare it for adulation or ridicule.
The Buckeyes allowed 93 points over two weeks in 2017 with 79 of them at the defense's expense. Eighty over two weeks in 2018 with a bye week tucked between them. Ninety points over the final two weeks of that regular season, which cost the program any playoff consideration.
Scoring 114 while going 2-0 rightfully pigeonholed Ohio State as a one-dimensional football program, which is what it's been outside of the glitch. This is some Oklahoma shit, a program in a clear-path conference whose most recent CFP appearance is now four years old.
That CFP edition of the Sooners lost to LSU by 45 points, and these days it's busy losing Cheez-It Bowls. One-dimensional teams not only have a tough time getting CFP invites in the four-team era, their program credibility atrophies with every passing season.
Lincoln Riley's defenses always look like Ohio State's current ones. He's still never won a non-COVID bowl game. This end of the book is where one-dimensional programs die, and we’ve had a little too much experience with that recently - which is why there’s no higher program priority, and Day knows it.
He has been recently accused of tolerating a Big XII defense - and it’s pointless to relitigate the Jeff Hafley/Kerry Coombs career sequences between 2019-21 or how the pandemic impacted hiring for a program he was still making his own. Day has since procured the only defensive coordinator from that conference worth a damn.
He's got no interest in having a Big XII defense, which is why it's time to go all-in on what has been built. That broken unit’s rehabilitation period should be closing now, and by the time the 2023 season ends we should be lifting Silver Bullets out of the morgue for discarded nicknames.
Then we’ll get to enjoy them right up until the next rehabilitation period inevitably arrives.
