COLUMBUS, Ohio — Jim Knowles just wanted to try some things.
He had the canvas: a high school running back-turned-untraditional defensive lineman named Jason Babin, standing shorter than 6-foot-3 and 260 pounds. And the then-Western Michigan defensive coordinator needed what he called a “run scheme disruptor.”
“You talk to offensive coaches and they always have to make different plans for three-down, four-down, whatever you are. Can you do both out of the same personnel? It starts there,” Knowles said.
“And then it goes to how to attack protections. Now, all of a sudden, once you got the guy moving around, you got them in different places, now you see how the offense adjusts to that and their schemes and you can come back with other things and counter in the passing game. That player’s productive in terms of the pass rush because I think they develop a mentality. They develop a mentality of being kind of a wild card, being a guy who makes plays.”
It worked for Babin, blossoming into a first-team All American and the first-ever Western Michigan player to be selected as a first-round NFL Draft pick.
For Knowles, it’s where he found his niche, something he carried with him wherever he went, from Cornell to Duke to Oklahoma State and now to Ohio State, introducing those same ideas to his defense for the first time.
With the Cowboys, it was known as the Leo, the title for the real disruptors: those players off the edge that would tackle both the running back and the running back.
Now with the Buckeyes, it’s pretty much the same: the defensive end/linebacker hybrid, who could be forced to do anything at a moment’s notice.
But it’s not the Leo.
“I told them we’re not going to call it a Leo. We’re going to call it a Jack for now because the Leo is the king of the jungle,” Knowles said. “When you become the Leo, that’s a big deal because you can do what a d-end does and can do what a linebacker does.”
Now called the Jack, Knowles began to introduce the game plan to his defense, wanting to see everything on film of this team instead of only watching Oklahoma State film.
The Ohio State defensive coordinator plugged defensive end Jack Sawyer in, saying he liked him a lot and saw that the sophomore was “serious about it,” also saying linebacker-turned-defensive end Mitchell Melton, Javontae Jean-Baptiste and Palaie Gaoteote IV saw some time there with Caden Curry: the freshman defensive end that Knowles said he liked what he had done in terms of quickness off the ball.
Speed and short-space quickness are two non-negotiables when it comes to Knowles’ signature spot. The defensive coordinator said he’s looking for a player with good hips, showing an ability to fit into tight spaces and make plays between the tackles. However, he said toughness is also a must, playing both through the A and B gaps along with coming off the edge.
Simply, Knowles is looking for explosion and disruption anywhere and everywhere on the football field, which is a very good recruiting tool for players who may be a square peg in a round hole of being only a linebacker or only a defensive end.
But there are players Knowles knows the Jack position isn’t for.
It isn’t for players like Chase Young, Nick Bosa and Joey Bosa, the premier examples of dominant Ohio State defensive ends. The defensive coordinator just wants simplicity for those players: sitting them off the edge and letting them go instead of forcing other responsibilities on them.
That’s what this position is for Knowles. It’s a responsibility.
It’s an adaptation to his personal football acumen and intelligence, being able to handle and master every single scheme a defense faces with a role that changes on the fly, something the Ohio State defensive coordinator will lead every step of the way.
“I am going to tell them exactly what to do. That’s my job,” Knowles said. “I’m going to call them into certain things. There’s a bunch of choices, you know: ‘Go here, go to the back, go away from the back, go to the tight end, go away from the tight end.’ That’s all contained within the call, but there’s a lot of learning they have to do. But we want to be able to have all that at your disposal.”
Knowles himself is a fixer, the one hired to revamp and revitalize Ohio State’s defense.
But the defensive coordinator’s niche, the position he formed and carried throughout each stop in his coaching career, is his fixer – the one that can correct any problem a defense has.
And dropping it into the Ohio State game plan, Knowles has started the process of finding that player.
