Jim Knowles walked around with a feeling of “total despair.” Ohio State had lost to Oregon by a point, its defense giving up nearly 500 yards, and the Buckeyes struggled through a painful Sunday morning.
“It was sadness, total darkness,” Knowles told The Athletic.
Immediately after Oregon’s 32-31 win, fans and media members — Nick Saban among them — pointed out the flaws in Ohio State’s defense. Knowles isn’t oblivious to the criticism, but his emotions were less about feeling bad for himself than everyone else who works inside the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.
From the nutritionists who plan out every meal to the academic support personnel to the strength and conditioning staff to the players, Knowles thought about how much so many people had invested in the team’s championship expectations for 2024.
“That’s the responsibility I feel,” Knowles said. “You feel like you let a lot of people down, so it’s a tough 24 hours.”
That’s all it could be, though: 24 hours of sadness.
“You have to pick yourself up and get right back in the fight,” Knowles said. “That’s what you have to do.”
The loss at Oregon on Oct. 12 gave Ohio State permission to hit reset. It was a chance for everybody to self-reflect and figure out what needed to change for the Buckeyes to capitalize on their talent and play to their potential. Few assistants are more equipped for that process than Knowles.
The 59-year-old has been one of the best coordinators in the country dating to his time at Duke, where he helped the Blue Devils reconfigure their defense under coach Dave Cutcliffe during one of the most successful periods in program history. At Oklahoma State, he built a defense that shut down high-powered Big 12 offenses and finished in the top 10 in points allowed in 2021. Over three years at Ohio State, Knowles’ defenses rank first in the FBS in yards and points allowed per game.
Despite all of that success, Knowles has had his share of moments when things haven’t gone his way or when he’s been forced to change. That’s what the Oregon loss was: a chance for him to adapt. The base defense might look similar on the surface, but it’s changing tendencies and looks week to week. In some ways, it’s showing Knowles at his best.
“He is the mad professor,” Cutcliffe said. “He would get in the meeting room, and if he got on that board, he’d fill it up.”
In the four games since the loss, Ohio State has given up just two touchdowns and 4.1 yards per play. Through the Oregon game, the Buckeyes had the nation’s 61st-highest blitz rate (28.2 percent), per TruMedia; since then, they’ve had the fourth highest (45.8 percent). They’ve also risen from 61st in percent of man-to-man defense played to 14th.
“You have to be able to look at yourself, that’s the biggest thing,” Knowles said. “Hopefully young coaches can learn that, you have to be able to look at yourself. A good carpenter never complains about his tools. It happens in life when coaches blame players, but it always leads to better solutions if from the top you accept accountability and accept answers.”
Cutcliffe knew exactly whom he wanted when hiring a new defensive coordinator in 2010.
Knowles had been on his staff at Ole Miss in 2003 before leaving to be the coach at his alma mater, Cornell. After posting a 26-34 record there, Knowles resigned. Cutcliffe wanted him back.
“I knew he would understand the challenges, having been at an Ivy League school, that we faced at Duke,” Cutcliffe said. “You have to be somewhat creative — but he’s not somewhat creative, he’s very creative.”
Cutcliffe also knew Knowles had a knack for teaching. He connected with people well, made staff meetings fun and balanced his creativity with keeping the scheme simple enough so players knew what they were doing.
“That’s the challenge of creativity,” Cutcliffe said. “You want to have wrinkles, Jim made it all systematic. It can be something they haven’t seen or you haven’t done, but it has to fit the system.”
Up-tempo, no-huddle offenses took over college football during Knowles’ time at Duke. So Cutcliffe went to his defensive coordinator with a challenge: Fast-paced offenses use one-word calls, so why couldn’t defenses?
It took them one offseason to install the changes Cutcliffe wanted to see.
“Great coaches don’t teach how and what; they teach players why they do this,” Cutcliffe said. “In this system, the ‘why’ was critical because they had to get the call, get lined up, get their eyes in the right place, and man did we get lined up quickly and players rarely made mistakes on formation calls.”
He’s still the same at Ohio State. Though many don’t see it, his energy still shows itself on the field or in the locker room. His viral dance moves after the win at Penn State are a good example of that. Even more importantly, his teaching skills continue to impress.
Goodnight Buckeyes 😏 pic.twitter.com/F1uZby92BG
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) November 3, 2024
Knowles’ objective as a coach is simple: teach the players what they’re supposed to do, show them how on the field and make sure they know why they are doing what they’re doing so they can think on their feet on the field.
“If you can show people why something happened, people aren’t walking around like, ‘Why the hell did this happen?’” Knowles said. “You can show them what happened. Even games we win by a lot, I always show them the negative plays and here’s what happened.
“They are used to getting answers and making corrections, but when you lose a game like (Oregon), it kind of hits you right in the face, kind of like a wake-up call.”
Duke’s best season in decades almost didn’t happen.
In 2013, the Blue Devils opened ACC play with a 38-14 loss to Georgia Tech and a 58-55 loss to Pittsburgh. The Pitt game was an eye-opener, much like the loss to Oregon was for Ohio State.
Duke didn’t have a bye week to regroup like Ohio State did. But Knowles took the same approach then as he did at Ohio State now: He went back to the basics. Duke went on to win eight consecutive games for its first 10-win season in program history before falling to Florida State in the ACC championship.
“Pitt hit us in the mouth,” Cutcliffe said. “One of the problems with being creative and schematic is that it’s still a physical game. It got us back into the fundamentals, and he knows the fundamentals well.”
Knowles was able to lean on experiences like this time at Duke when it came to bouncing back from the Oregon loss.
“There were times at Duke when you’re just outmanned and outgunned when you try to give your guys a chance and maybe you didn’t and eventually we did. There were times at Oklahoma State, too,” Knowles said. “When I got to the Big 12, people were just going for the jugular every play — you felt like you weren’t putting the guys in good positions and you lean on that because you know I’ve made adjustments in the past and I figured it out.”
“Re-engineering” Ohio State’s defense, in the words of coach Ryan Day, didn’t happen just because coaches showed film and corrected the on-field mistakes.
The first key for Knowles is self-evaluation. Figure out what you’re doing wrong and have the answers to adapt. Taking accountability and collaborating to find solutions can earn respect from the locker room and coaching staff.
“He’s open to our questions, we can put our thoughts into it and he’ll take it and use it,” Ohio State defensive lineman Caden Curry said.
The answer at Ohio State was to mix what Knowles does best with what Ohio State has been known for with its four-down front. Ohio State came out of the bye week moving its defensive linemen around in the pass game and against the run. It’s blitzing more, but it’s also mixing in some coverage concepts that Knowles had success with at Oklahoma State.
After the loss to Oregon, Ohio State came up with two late defensive stops to hold off Nebraska, held a top-five Penn State team without an offensive touchdown and allowed a total of 7 points to overmatched Purdue and Northwestern. The Oregon game remains the only one in which an opponent has exceeded 275 total yards against Ohio State.
The increased presence in the defensive meeting rooms of Day — who relinquished offensive play calling — has been a big help, as well.
“It’s one thing to be a boss and point at the problems, but he has that football acumen where he can offer solutions and ideas,” Knowles said. “It’s a big deal having that resource who can say, ‘Here’s how I see it from an offensive perspective.’”
The defense can never be perfect, but it now has more in its toolbox than ever before. And it is finding the balance Knowles has been searching for.
No. 2 Ohio State enters Saturday’s unexpected top-five showdown with No. 5 Indiana as a double-digit favorite, aiming for another shot at Oregon in the Big Ten title game. For Ohio State to get to this point, the “mad professor” had to have a day like the Sunday after the Oregon loss in October.
When the story of the 2024 Ohio State season is written, the hope is that the heartbreak in Eugene is viewed as a turning point rather than an ominous setback.
“Life throws you different curveballs, and if you hit them out of the park with a bad swing, well, the issues are still there,” Knowles said. “But when you lose, people kind of wake up and see it.”
(Top photo: Ali Gradischer / Getty Images)
