Updated Sep 20, 2015 at 10:33a ET In football and in life in general there is usually a fine line between an explanation and an excuse. Bringing up the former without it sounding like the latter can be tricky, especially for coaches and players on the No. 1 team in the country. That’s the situation Taylor Decker found himself in Saturday after a second consecutive lackluster performance by the Ohio State offense, this time a 20-13 victory over Northern Illinois that began in a light rain and ended with the sun shining on a variety of questions about why the Buckeyes have not looked like they were expected to. While the quarterbacks have gotten most of the headlines, Ohio State’s left tackle pointed out another continuing bugaboo for the Buckeyes: odd front defenses. In the case of Northern Illinois, that meant a three-man line with four active linebackers behind it. Previous opponents — most famously Virginia Tech — have also attacked the Buckeyes with a “Bear” defense, which is variation of odd front that calls for the three down linemen to pinch inside. “(Northern Illinois has) a nose, two ends and a walkup ‘Buck’ (linebacker) to the boundary (short side of the field) usually, and they can blitz from all over,” Decker said. “They can blitz from the (wide side of the) field and disguise it really well.” That helped the Huskies attack Ohio State’s favorite running plays — inside zone and “power”, both of which depend on linemen using double teams to displace the defensive front to create a crease. And once they create movement up front with a double team, linemen hope to be able to “scrape” off of the first block to pick up a linebacker or safety at the second level. Using a 3-4 creates different angles for double teams and downfield blocks than what Ohio State generally works on since the 4-3 is far more prevalent in college football, especially among power conference teams. Compounding the problem Saturday for Ohio State was a lack of preparation for the defense the Huskies played. …
Continue Reading: Odd-man defensive fronts bedeviling Buckeyes again
