After Ohio State’s loss to Oregon, Ryan Day said “structural changes” are imminent for Buckeye’s defense.
That statement prompted many to wonder what real changes the Buckeyes could make to their defensive plan during mid-season, but junior general manager Garrett Wilson said Wednesday that he is already trying something out in practice.
“We haven’t had a better practice today than we have all year – offensively – I would say. They’re trying to learn new things on the defensive side, so that comes with a learning curve. ”Wilson said. “We started with the camp. We knew we had some problems, but whenever you lose, it magnifies them all. There’s no room for clutter in practice. If there were before, there aren’t any now.”
Wilson said he does not believe the decision has changed much from player to player on defense (a group that yielded 35 points and 505 yards in total last weekend), and said the unit has always provided the necessary intensity. on the table. Still, it looks like the group is playing with some new elements as the Buckeyes hope to improve on Saturday against Tulsa.
“They wear it every day. They have some new things that they are working on and I will leave it at that, ”Wilson said. “My teammates, they go out there and get to work every day on defense, offensive side, both sides.”
There were no defensive players available in Wednesday’s round of interviews at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, but defensive coordinator Kerry Coombs said after the Oregon game that he was responsible for Ohio State’s defensive deficiencies. Wilson said Buckeye’s offense should also share some of the blame and said Ohio State left a lot of points and yards on the field, even after accumulating 612 in the game.
“You can say what you want about the defense, but we had two chances to tie the game and if we do what we do in the first unit, take the lead after they’ve got those two stops: three units, really, if you count the ‘last record,’ ”Wilson said. “We do not feel that we have done enough in the offensive part. We want to control what we can control, and that is to put points on the board each unit ”.
Nicholas Petit-Frere was asked more than once Wednesday about how he has seen his teammates respond to the loss, but, like Wilson, the red junior offensive line player said the change has been as offensive as defensive for the last four days.
“She is OK. It was a learning experience for many of us, because it hasn’t been here for a long time, ”said Petit-Frere. “So Coach Day took it easy and said it’s a learning opportunity for all of us (coaches for players, everyone) to learn what we’ve done wrong and how to improve and fix the mistakes we’ve made. “We’ve just been very hungry with all the players on both sides of the ball, and we’re just hungry and ready to compete again.”
Petit-Frere said Wednesday’s practice, which Wilson called the best the team has had all year, was a “big day of competition,” citing a rise in the level of “energy and juice.” possessed both in attack and defense.
What Ohio State’s first left-back attack has changed the most since the loss, however, is the Buckeyes ’commitment to good preparation points.
“We just learned a lot about how to do small things right,” Petit-Frere said. “A lot about the details in practice, the details when it comes to things I wouldn’t even think about, like how we stretch, the way we get into a practice, the way we get into a mess, the way we do any All these little details are things we’ve been doing for so many years here, that’s why we’ve won, and when you lose track of some of these little details, things like this can happen.So back to basics, we make sure to make all the small details correctly, correcting all the small mistakes and never taking anything for granted ”.
The loss at the start of the season may have been a wake-up call for the Buckeyes in many ways, but Wilson won’t come close to saying a disguised blessing.
“I hate losing, so it’s never a blessing to me,” Wilson said. “I hate talking about it, I hate losing. You need to use it. You can’t have it as a loss and not use it to improve or realize what the problems were and really address them now. ”