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Introduction
If you haven’t heard, Penn State welcomes its toughest opponent of this year (and seemingly every year) as Ohio State visits Beaver Stadium for a Saturday Gusgasm-filled nooner. The leaf sticker wearers have brandished a lethal offense for close to a decade now. Normally, that potent attack has been complemented by a defense full of future multi-millionaires performing as a cohesive, stubborn unit. I say “normally” because 2020 and 2021 were certainly exceptions to the standard.
Enter Jim Knowles.
The bearded bastion of defense started his career as the DC at Duke from 2010-2017 before moving to OSU-Central (Oklahoma State) from 2018-2021. For various reasons, both of those posts come with a litany of challenges – Duke with its talent deficiencies and Okie State plays in the Big XII (nuf said). And yet, at both spots, Knowles somehow made it work. And though the 2022 season is far from complete, thus far, Knowles has taken Ohio State’s full cupboard of talent and orchestrated a substantial defensive turnaround…evidenced in the various basic and advanced stats we’re about to present.
