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Football Takeaways from Jim Knowles's introductory press conference

"To this point, he hasn't shown a desire to be a head coach again after previously being the head coach at Cornell from 2004 through 2009. " I believe this is wrong. Last year he interviewed for the head coaching job at Duke.
 
"To this point, he hasn't shown a desire to be a head coach again after previously being the head coach at Cornell from 2004 through 2009. " I believe this is wrong. Last year he interviewed for the head coaching job at Duke.
You may be correct, but interviewing for HC gigs are multifaceted. Some just use them as levers for raises, or test the current teams waters for future desirability ( observe reactions). — Since the implementation of full blown NIL/playoff/Portal , HC’ing is virtually a 24/7 /365 thing , and much less desirable for “old school” coaches….(see Saban/ OSU OC etc). — He’s making a very good buck right now, and I think it’s less likely, at his age and status , that he wants to test HC waters. We’ll see, I guess.
 
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Obviously a great hire for PSU and he'll do well here. I especially like his temperament and the fact he wants to be here (I know the contract is lucrative, but he seems single minded in wanting PSU to win it all!). The only thing that concerns me are what some Buckeyes posted on this forum after he was hired. While they spoke highly of him, they said he runs a complicated D and it takes time to implement and for players to learn the system.....like 2-3 years. If he plans to stay around for a while like it seems he will maybe that's okay, but PSU appears to be in a win now mode with all the offensive weapons returning next season. I'm far from an X's and O's guy so who knows if this is true. Just wondering if this is an accurate assessment and what our experience will be.
 
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Obviously a great hire for PSU and he'll do well here. I especially like his temperament and the fact he wants to be here (I know the contract is lucrative, but he seems single minded in wanting PSU to win it all!). The only thing that concerns me are what some Buckeyes posted on this forum after he was hired. While they spoke highly of him, they said he runs a complicated D and it takes time to implement and for players to learn the system.....like 2-3 years. If he plans to stay around for a while like it seems he will maybe that's okay, but PSU appears to be in a win now mode with all the offensive weapons returning next season. I'm far from an X's and O's guy so who knows if this is true. Just wondering if this is an accurate assessment and what our experience will be.
An example of what can go wrong was the 2022 game with Michigan. OSU played extremely risky defenses and got burned time after time. That is the worst of Jim Knowles. If you watch that game, you will see the downside of what generally is a very good defense. The best of Jim Knowles was the second half of the recent season.
 
An example of what can go wrong was the 2022 game with Michigan. OSU played extremely risky defenses and got burned time after time. That is the worst of Jim Knowles. If you watch that game, you will see the downside of what generally is a very good defense. The best of Jim Knowles was the second half of the recent season.
I need to re-watch but I don’t think the problem was scheme as opposed to lack of discipline and gap control.
 
I need to re-watch but I don’t think the problem was scheme as opposed to lack of discipline and gap control.
IMHO, the Buckeyes underestimated UM"s passing game. UM was led by Corrum and Edwards. While UM only had 12 completions, they got 3 TDs and 263 total yards. UM's initial TDs:
  • 69 yard pass to Johnson
  • 75 yard pass to Johnson
  • 45 Yard pass to Loveland
At that point, it was 24`20 Michigan and tOSU adjusted to stop the pass. So what happened? 15 15-play drive for a TD, an Edwards 75-yard TD run and an Edwards 85-yard TD run. The 75-yard run really ended the game as it put UM up 31`23 with only 7 to play. The last 85-yard run was with a minute left and tOSU had already been gutted and filleted.

tOSU thought that they could use the S to run stop and left the corners to play man on UM receivers. Blame it on Knowles or the players, who knows?

 
Time will tell, both Manny and Allen were “players coaches”, who seemed to develop relationships and were good at getting the team fired up. Knowles seems more aloof, and an x and o guy. Hopefully he will work well with the current staff, and roles will be clearly defined. I’m not as concerned with the whole complicated scheme thing. He will look at what PSU has been doing and will adapt. He will also be dealing with an experienced team for the most part. I do wish King would have stayed one more year, but there seems to be some younger guys who could step up.
 
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Time will tell, both Manny and Allen were “players coaches”, who seemed to develop relationships and were good at getting the team fired up. Knowles seems more aloof, and an x and o guy. Hopefully he will work well with the current staff, and roles will be clearly defined. I’m not as concerned with the whole complicated scheme thing. He will look at what PSU has been doing and will adapt. He will also be dealing with an experienced team for the most part.
Good point. And to that point, Knowles will be in the booth where he said he can think better. So he will be cut off from the emotional part of playing and coaching defense in games.
 
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