Tim May: Jim Knowles teaching an ‘upper-level’ course to veteran Buckeyes defense

COLUMBUS — One can tell by the way Jim Knowles talks about his third Ohio State defense he’s pumped about dealing primarily with third- and fourth-year veterans as the unit seeks to rise from good last year to elite in 2024.

Any professor likely will admit there is a certain joy that comes with being in front a classroom of students in an advanced level course. There is little nonsense. Almost all are there because of knowledge already gained and the desire to build on that.

The faces looking back at Knowles just from the probable first team starting lineup include 10 full- opart-time starters from last season, many of them multi-year starters, and a transfer from Alabama, Caleb Downs, who wound up starting as a freshman for the Crimson Tide and is in the conversation of best returning safety in the nation.

There are no laggards in the group, and that seems to go for the others competing for playing time.

Then throw in this is the third for Knowles as Ohio State defensive coordinator. He, too, has learned over the past two years, morphing his famed 4-2-5 scheme — it took him to fame in four escalator years at Oklahoma State — to fit the four- and five-star laden roster at Ohio State.

Now as he stands before the 2024 Ohio State defenders, he knows they’ve bought in; at least six of those players could have left for the NFL draft but opted to return primarily because of business left undone, what with the current three-game losing streak to rival Michigan, three-season drought in Big Ten titles, and the chase for a national championship.

They’re motivated, and they seem eager to wring out the Knowles system for all it’s worth at Ohio State. He has to bring it in advanced-level form every day, and after practice Friday he seemed motivated by that challenge.

“Yes, it’s definitely an upper level course,” Knowles said. “And I think there’s just more confidence that guys are going to be able to make the adjustments themselves [on the fly on the field].

“You know, obviously, I put a lot of pressure on myself to be right all the time, but I’m not. So when you get different things that happen or formations that happened in the course of the game, you know, you can, you can expect that those guys will be able to fix it on the field.”

Defensive end Jack Sawyer is a great example of how the defense has evolved and improved under Knowles. Near the end of last season Sawyer took a leap in marauding and production, and in his fourth year is carrying himself in a loftier manner on the field as this preseason camp ensues.

“He had a great bowl game [despite the 14-3 loss to Missouri in the Cotton],” Knowles said. “You know, it’s just confidence.

“Jack is always a really good-natured personality, but you can see how serious he is about his craft. He has seemed to really advance it to next-level stuff.”

That seems to have gone for the Ohio State defense as a whole. But what Knowles is stressing is as advanced as the group is it can be so much better. Not getting off the field at Michigan when it really needed to late in the game last year, giving up some big plays to Missouri in the fourth that helped the Tigers climb over the hump, the chase is still on.

“Vince Lombardi said it, you have to chase perfection,” Knowles said. “It’s not possible, but you can catch excellence in the process.”

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