Ohio State football: 5 reasons OSU bounces back against Nebraska

4. The Buckeyes’ defense will do just enough to succeed

Defense has been a nagging problem all season.

It seems like the Bucks have been waiting an eternity for the  defense to pull themselves together. The feeling was that everyone should just wait for the inevitable and the talent would finally catch up to the potential and everything would be OK.

We’re still waiting.

The shocking regular-season loss for the Buckeyes was born out of lost defensive play and habits.

Though they rank in the middle of the pack in the Big Ten, the Bucks have the 59th ranked defense in the country in opponents’ yards per game. This is 52 places back from where they were last season which was seventh in the nation.

The absolutely pitiful effort from the defense last weekend caused great embarrassment to this team as they let up nearly 50 points to an unranked opponent.

Given, the Purdue Boilermakers are second in the conference behind the Bucks in total offense, but that still doesn’t merit so many points to be gouged for. The performance that was seen against Purdue by this defense is the same that has been occurring all season.

Something that should absolutely never be a problem for top teams on defense is missed tackles.

Yet, sure enough, Ohio State missed around 20 tackles against the Boilermakers.

Players should be able to tackle at this point in the season and if not then they don’t deserve a place on the active roster. That was an unacceptable effort which hopefully will not repeat itself any time soon. If there’s anything that has to change, it has to be cleaning up those mistakes.

The other obvious issue was big plays. It was a focus to limit explosive plays in that game as the Boilermakers have been known to be a better offense in the Big Ten this season but clearly that focus went out the window. Partly because of missed tackles in the open field, the Boilermakers ripped off multiple big plays including one that was a third and very long in down and distance where they simply broke off a run to get the first down. Any team that is allowed to convert from that far will have success.

Changes need to be made on this defense no matter which position is in question. The Cornhuskers have one of the better offenses in the Big Ten and have been on fire recently.

They’ve scored 45 or more points in their last two games. It’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility that they score a similar amount against the Bucks. The key will be slowing them down through the air and getting to the quarterback. Expect the Buckeyes to put their defense against the test of the Cornhuskers’ rallying offense this weekend