The Ohio State Buckeyes may have finished the season at 13-1 last year but there was a big 'what if' when it came to a defense that allowed too many big plays and likely kept Ohio State out of the College Football Playoff when it was all said and done.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Many people felt that the 2018 Ohio State defense was in line for a complete and total rebuild after an atypical season of results.
Take it down to the ground and start over.
The man tasked with leading the Ohio State defense under first-year head coach Ryan Day does not see it that way.
And he knows a thing or two.
Greg Mattison has been coaching college football longer than Ryan Day has been alive. Mattison has coached against the Buckeyes 14 different times, 13 of them with Ohio State’s biggest rivals. And while he has been more focused on how to stop Ohio State’s offense, he is well aware of what the Ohio State defense has been all about.
“I looked at Ohio State always as being a great program,” Mattison said earlier this week.
The numbers have been looked at frontwards and backwards. 2018 was just not a great season statistically as Ohio State gave up too many big plays, too many points and then there was that game at Purdue that kept Ohio State out of the College Football Playoff.
