Ohio State’s game-breaking play in its Cotton Bowl semifinal win over Texas didn’t come from Jeremiah Smith, the best freshman wideout to play college football in years.
It didn’t come from quarterback Will Howard, and it didn’t come from the prized tailback duo of TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins.
Instead, it came from Jack Sawyer, the three-year starter on the defensive edge whose career, until a few weeks ago, looked like it would have a different defining memory. He was the Buckeye at the middle of that whole flag-planting fracas after a grisly loss to Michigan, one that left Ryan Day on the apparent hot seat and ensured that Sawyer would leave Ohio State without a win in The Game.
All of that’s now secondary. With Texas trying to tie the game on fourth down, Sawyer slipped right tackle Cam Williams and tomahawked the ball out of the hand of his onetime OSU roommate, Quinn Ewers. Sawyer was in the end zone 82 yards later with an iconic defensive play, and Ohio State was getting ready for a national title game date with Notre Dame on Monday in Atlanta.
Sawyer being the hero was fitting, because he tells the story of Ohio State’s defense the past few years: It hasn’t been Ohio State’s flashiest side of the ball, but the Buckeyes have churned out offensive stars and they’ve gradually become a defensive powerhouse under coordinator Jim Knowles.
That defense, more than the offense, is now where they figure to have the strongest matchup edge against the Fighting Irish.
A Nightmarish Edge Rushing Tandem
Ohio State’s pass rush has been ferocious all year. The Buckeyes have generated a 45.3% pressure rate on opposing drop backs, which ranks third in the power conferences.
Their actual sack rate of 10.0% leads everybody, as the Buckeyes have done an excellent job turning pressures into drive-killing losses.
They’ve done all of that despite not blitzing much: Knowles has brought five or more rushers 30.8% of the time, a bit above the 27.5% power conference average but below the rates of a bunch of teams with the highest pressure rates in the sport.
There is no great mystery about where that pressure comes from. The Buckeyes have pass rushers who win. Edges Jack Sawyer and JT Tuimoloau have combined for a whopping 99 pressures and 31 adjusted sacks, coming in first and second in the Big Ten in the latter stat. (Tuimoloau’s 16 adjusted sacks lead everyone; Sawyer is next at 15.)
Sawyer’s 25.8% pressure rate is fifth in the country among edge defenders with at least 100 pass rushing snaps, and his six tipped passes at the line lead all of FBS.
None of this bodes well for a Notre Dame offensive line that has a pressure-allowed rate of 36.3% – worse than the national average of 32.6%.
The Buckeyes’ Short-Yardage Wall
Ohio State’s most baffling flaw of the past few seasons has been in short-yardage situations on offense. For varying reasons, the Buckeyes have not been good at picking up a necessary yard or two with carries on third and fourth down. This shortcoming bit them in the Cotton Bowl when Texas stacked up Judkins on a 3rd-and-1 as the Buckeyes tried to create separation in the third quarter.
There is good news, though: For all of Ohio State’s short yardage problems on offense, the defense has been absolute money in the same position. You need only look at two sequences in particular:
- In the Cotton Bowl, Sawyer’s Strip-6 came only after Texas had 1st-and-goal at the Ohio State 1-yard line. The Buckeyes stuffed a run up the middle on first down, created a loss of 7 yards on a pitch on second down, and forced an incompletion on third down before Sawyer brought the house down on fourth. Needing to hammer out just 1 yard against OSU, Texas stopped trying.
- In Week 10, Ohio State led Penn State by a touchdown with just more than 5 minutes remaining. PSU had 1st-and-goal at the Ohio State 3, then carried three times for 2 yards before Drew Allar threw an incompletion into the end zone from the 1 on fourth down.
Ohio State’s overall short-yardage run stats are fine: 2.84 yards allowed per carry on third and fourth down with 2 yards or less to gain for the offense, plus a 68.4% success rate on those carries (against a power conference average of 70.9%).
But more than any number, the results in crunch time – and opponents’ decisions to stop pounding the ball after failed attempts – tell the tale.
Tuimoloau and Sawyer are strong run defenders and by no means pure speed-rushing edges. But the crown jewel of Ohio State’s trench play is tackle Tyleik Williams, whose 28 run stuffs lead the team. The Buckeyes have depth behind him, too, something they demonstrated when they got that critical stop against Penn State with a then-injured Williams watching from the sideline.
Tackles Ty Hamilton and Kayden McDonald combined for another 28 run stuffs, matching No. 91’s count.
The Very Dangerous Second and Third Levels
Ostensibly, Knowles does not have that hard a job. Give any coach two edge rushers like Tuimoloau and Sawyer and a tackle like Williams, and he’ll win the line of scrimmage pretty much every week.
That’s true, but Knowles has made things even better by his wise deployment of talented players behind them – in particular, elite linebacker Cody Simon and safety Caleb Downs.
The Buckeyes have used their nickel defense 75.5% of the time. In addition to putting a lot on slot cornerback Jordan Hancock, this configuration has made Simon perhaps the most important player on the defense.
Simon is a fifth-year player with more college experience than any other OSU linebacker, and Knowles asks a ton of him. He’s been a critical situational pass rusher, generating 16 pressures on 54 pass-rushing snaps for a 29.6% pressure rate. (He’s generated about twice as many pressures as the also-very-good Sonny Styles, his inside linebacker partner.)
Simon’s 15 run disruptions also lead the OSU linebacking corps, as do his 27 run stuffs. And Knowles puts him in coverage a lot, with mixed results (as any inside backer will have) but with five passes defended, another stat in which he leads OSU backers.
Most national champs have a jack-of-all-trades linebacker in Simon’s mold. Ohio State’s last title team in 2014 had Darron Lee, who later became a first-round NFL Draft pick. Dabo Swinney’s best Clemson teams had Isaiah Simmons, who became a first-rounder too. Simon won’t be a first-round pick, but he won defensive MVP honors at the Rose Bowl and will go into Ohio State lore with a win on Monday.
Meanwhile, Downs patrols his safety spot across from Lathan Ransom. As great as every other player discussed has been, Downs is the best player on the unit and probably on the whole team. Nobody has played more than his 822 snaps, and there’s more or less nothing the Buckeyes ask of Downs (including returning punts quite well!) that he does not give them.
The most telling number about Downs’ season is 20: That’s how many times opposing QBs have targeted him on his 312 coverage snaps, for a team-low targeted rate of 6.4%. Only five safeties in the country were targeted less on more than 300 coverage snaps. And only one allowed better than Downs’ 7.7 expected yards per target, and only seven had more than his 17 run stuffs.
A defense on which it takes more than a half-second to consider whether Downs is the best player is a defense that should win a national title. On Monday, the Buckeyes have their shot.
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