COLUMBUS, Ohio — Jim Knowles needs to get his defense on tape.

There’s an urgency, the Ohio State defensive coordinator said, to introduce his scheme to his players so he can teach, learning from the good reps and the bad reps in sessions during the summer, hoping to have two-thirds of his defense engrained heading into the fall.

There’s a method to Knowles’ madness, teetering on the balance beam between “downloading” information and pulling back, “downloading” information and pulling back.

“We’ll go in one day and we’ll download nine defenses in our jet package, which is what we’re calling for the Jack, and then you do it against cans, and you run around and do it against just trash cans and then you do it against the offense,” Knowles said. “I just run around crazy saying, ‘Go here, go there.’

“Then you kind of see their eyes glaze over. And then, you know, ‘OK, it’s time just to call base.’”

It’s a defense that’s learning. It’s a defense that’s growing.

But it’s a defense that’s being challenged day in and day out, putting their lessons to the test against one of the best offenses in the country.

“We’re facing such a talented receiver corps with a great quarterback,” Knowles said. “Seven-on-seven, that time can be extremely frustrating.”

To Knowles, it starts with C.J. Stroud and his ability to dissect things on the fly at quarterback, to find the space to make a play when there doesn’t seem to be any openings.

“I remember when I was at Ole Miss with Eli Manning. He was the same way in that, you know, the guys that are good, what C.J. is, that they can diagnose,” Knowles said. “There’s always a soft spot, right? We’re trying to bluff rotations and try to deceive the quarterback and do all those and show one picture and end up in another. And I think he does a great job of just figuring that out and getting rid of the ball because there’s always a hole.”

It’s a gift, one Kevin Wilson admitted he doesn’t have.

Learning football as an offensive lineman, playing center and guard, the Ohio State offensive coordinator said he stands behind a quarterback, seeing what he sees, and has no idea who’s open. It’s natural, he said, to have the ability to anticipate and see windows.

WIlson knows it’s something head coach Ryan Day has, standing on the sideline, watching his offense as a former quarterback as the offensive coordinator watches the same offense in the eyes of alignment.

Everyone views the game differently, the offensive coordinator said. And the way Stroud views it is special.

“C.J.’s got that view of a quarterback and he has a unique gift of seeing it, whether he’s learned it. Maybe a little,” Wilson said. “I think a lot of it’s innately God-given.”

This is the kind of look Knowles has to coach against. He has to teach his defense against a quarterback who he feels has the ability to see right through his schemes and can find the holes no matter what.

And for the Ohio State defensive coordinator, that’s a good thing for both sides. It’s only going to make both sides better.

“I talked with him today and I joked with him,” Knowles said. “He likes what we’re doing because it challenges him, I think.”