Friday's Friendly Debate: The Best OSU Defensive Coach

Hold up.....Banker is not a duh, no-brainer.

I will take Rocky Long over Banker.  Rocky had a lot less talent to work with as well.

Banker was good until he had to face offenses that were more wide open...then it got ugly. Against pro style offenses,we were solid. We didn't have the athletes with discipline who could even slow down the wide open offenses. Banker could never adapt to the spread offenses that we saw become popular in the mid to late 2000's. Rocky was far better overall imo...

why is "wide open" so commonly used as a euphemism for the spread option?  It just strikes me as weird.  Especially now that it has really fallen out of favor and is no longer dominant, since the rest of the league has pretty much caught up (see Chip Kelly at UCLA now).

The thing is leaving the emotional frustration out of it, Banker wasn't great but he was slightly better than average against the spread option, relative to his peers. And to me, that's the real measuring stick is how he stacked up against other DC's... and it's crazy to me that you say Banker could never adapt to "mid-2000's offenses" when literally 05-06-07, smack in the middle of the 2000's, were the best defenses OSU ever had.

Banker's defenses struggled for a little while with mobile QB's but it didn't last forever.  Ortege Jenkins got wrecked by OSU. Jake Locker got wrecked by OSU. D-Dog spent a whole game shadowing Dennis Dixon and eating him up.

The spread option came along and exploited the basic tenet of Bankerball - take away the deep ball by disrupting the timing of the WR, plug the middle and string the ball out to the sidelines where the OLB's and safeties can clean up. Hustle and pursuit, 11 hats to the ball.  Now here comes an offense that has the entire GOAL of stringing the play out to the sidelines and creating cutback lanes.  It was kryptonite and not only does Banker have to rethink his whole basic strategy, he also has to teach different keys, responsibilities, and arguably look for different athletes.

Of COURSE that will take time to do.  Obviously the teams with superior athletes are going to make this transition quicker but yet Banker still manages to at least be average - despite recruiting guys to play his system, his style of D.

TL, DR: Banker gets a bum rap for his performance against the spread option offenses that came along circa 2009/2010

They were playing most of the 1st half as well, due to the 10 fumbles/game in the Pettibone era.

There's no way to compare based on stats because the game changed dramatically (sorry wilky), but I will go off the fact that Rocky continued to have great success at New Mexico & SD State, while Banker did not at Nebraska.

I actually like Craig Bray as a defensive co-ordinator better than Banker. It is true,Rocky coached at osu a long time ago,and maybe my memory of him isn't as good as watching my hopes of going to a Rose Bowl get eviscerated at Reser by the uo 65-38 when we looked like a little league defense. Those kind of emotional losses stick with me watching the Banker defenses when my expectations are peaking.

In 1995, we gave up 20 to ASU, 26 to Washington, 13 to Cal, 14 to Arizona, 28 to USC and 12 to oregon, and lost every one of those games. We played incredible defense that year, especially considering how little help we got from our offense because it was so pitiful.

In 1994 we gave up 22 to ASU, 24 to Fresno, 27 to USC, 24 to Washington and 17 to oregon. And lost every one of those games.

Those defenses most definitely were not playing against backups, because the games were so competitive.

Rocky Long was a miracle worker. He also had outstanding assistants.