Ohio might return its all-time leading passer in quarterback Tyler Tettleton and running back Beau Blankenship, the Bobcats’ best single-season rusher, but neither of them will be tasked with slowing Teddy Bridgewater and the multi-faceted Louisville offense on Sunday.
That task will come down to a defense that only gets deeper the farther you get from the line of scrimmage.
Up front, redshirt senior Keith Moore is making the move from middle linebacker to weak-side linebacker, a position he played earlier in his career. He’ll lead
Ohio’s fairly inexperienced front seven against a Louisville offensive line that returns three starters from a season ago.
He isn’t concerned with the fact that the Bobcats lost two starters each in their linebacker core and on the defensive line, but he is eager to see what’s in store for the group.
Only days before the season starts, defensive line coach Jesse Williams has yet to announce the four defensive line starters.
Moore, a team captain, said that his younger cohorts are progressing well and that having a deep secondary—redshirt seniors Travis Carrie and Jamil Shaw have returned from injuries that sidelined them last season—will make their job much easier.
“They help out a lot,” Moore said. “A bunch of our blitzes are in man coverage, so it kind of helps knowing that you have some good guys back there to protect your back if you’re not getting to the quarterback.”
That secondary will be short a player who started 11 games for Ohio last season, as cornerback Larenzo Fisher has been suspended indefinitely after being charged with four counts of drug trafficking.
The suspension supersedes a prior disciplinary suspension that would have kept Fisher from the field during Ohio’s first two games.
Regardless of Fisher’s status, members of the secondary said that it is still the forte of the defensive unit.
“I would say (it’s the strength of the defense),” said redshirt sophomore cornerback Ian Wells, who started 11 games last season. “We’ve got four or five guys who have starting experience that you put out there, and I feel like the coaches are comfortable putting us out there at different situations during the game.”
The defensive players noted that in film study, Louisville institutes multiple personnel changes and a lot of pre-snap motion at the line in attempts to baffle its opponent.
“They’re trying to mess you up,” Moore said. “What they run isn’t hard to read. They just have a bunch of motions and a bunch of shifts to try and mess you up and see if you’re in man or zone (coverage).”
To combat that, both Shaw and Carrie said that coaches have stressed that communication will be especially key in order to avoid the confusion the
Cardinals are trying to cause.
“If you’re not communicating, if your eye progression is not in the right place, you can definitely get lost in the game,” Carrie said.
ch203310@ohiou.edu
