No. 5 Ohio State is 3-1 and scoring 45 points a game. Julian Sayin and Jeremiah Smith just carved up Illinois for four touchdowns. The Buckeyes still look like a College Football Playoff team.
Their defense does not look like the unit that just spent two seasons sitting at the top of the sport.
That gap is the story of the first month. Ohio State allowed 462 yards in Saturday’s 42-19 win over Illinois, the most the Buckeyes have surrendered since Oregon piled up 496 in October 2024. The Illini ran for 199 yards at 6.0 per carry. Aidan Laughery averaged 10.3 yards on 11 attempts. Ohio State gave up 15 plays of 10 or more yards and eight of 20 or more, ending a 27-game streak of holding opponents under 400 yards.
The scoreboard still showed a 23-point win. That is the problem and the temptation at the same time. The offense is good enough to paper over a lot. The schedule that starts Saturday at No. 14 Iowa will not be.
Context matters. This is not a bad defense. Through four games Ohio State has allowed 12.3 points and 274.3 yards per game. That is still top-tier nationally in scoring defense. It is not the standard the program just set.
In 2024 the Buckeyes allowed 6.8 points and 196.5 yards through a comparable early stretch. In 2025 those numbers were 5.5 and 229.3. Last year’s finished product ranked first in the country in scoring defense (9.3 points) and total defense (219.1 yards). This group is living in a different neighborhood.
The talent drain explains most of it. Eight defensive starters left. Safety Caleb Downs, linebackers Sonny Styles and Arvell Reese, and defensive tackle Kayden McDonald were among the first-round and early-round picks. Coordinator Matt Patricia no longer has a spine of difference-makers who could erase a missed assignment with a wrecking-ball play. He has depth, transfers and young players who are still learning how they fit.
“This is a different defense than we had last year,” coach Ryan Day said as Big Ten play approached. “Now we have to put the right pieces together.”
The Illinois tape is the clearest diagnosis. Ohio State came in having given up just three plays of 20-plus yards all season. Illinois produced eight. Several of those came after Patricia dialed up more pressure and more man coverage — a response to the fourth-quarter collapse at Texas two weeks earlier, when Arch Manning and the Longhorns scored 21 points and Ohio State pressured Manning on only 25 percent of his dropbacks.
Blitzing created sacks. The Buckeyes finished with a season-high three against Illinois. It also created vacated run lanes. Illinois used that aggression against them. Laughery found daylight. Quarterback Katin Houser ripped a 25-yard run off a blitz. Jordan Anderson walked into the end zone from 22 yards after the defense over-pursued and lost the edge.
The linebackers are part of the issue. Payton Pierce is the communicator and captain. Wisconsin transfer Christian Alliegro brings size and physicality. Riley Pettijohn and T.J. Alford have the athletic traits the staff loves. Against Illinois, those last two also produced the assignment failures that keep showing up: missed run fits, failure to set the edge, overpursuit. Those are the kinds of mistakes Styles and Reese used to swallow. This group has not.
Up front, Patricia is still mixing combinations. Kenyatta Jackson Jr. has been the most reliable edge. Interior rotation among Eddrick Houston, John Walker, James Smith, Jason Moore and Will Smith Jr. has not produced a consistent run-stuffing identity. Last year’s line finished seventh nationally against the run. This year’s unit ranks closer to the middle of the pack after four games and looked ordinary against a mid-tier Big Ten ground game.
The back end has been the defense’s best group. Transfer safeties Earl Little Jr. and Terry Moore, plus corners Jermaine Mathews Jr. and Devin Sanchez, have generally held up. Ohio State recorded 12 pass breakups against Illinois, the most since 2012, with Jaylen McClain accounting for four. McClain also produced a momentum-changing deflection at the 5-yard line in the third quarter.
Even there, the details leak. Busted coverages still appear. Two second-half pass-interference flags gifted Illinois 29 yards. Patricia’s decision to play more man behind extra pressure produced the sacks he wanted and the explosives he did not. Day said as much after the game.
“There was too many big plays today,” Day said. “We brought a little more pressure, played a little more man-to-man, and some of those balls squirted out and created explosive plays. So we gotta get on the film and make the corrections.”
Pierce framed it as a communication problem that experience should fix.
“We gotta capitalize on more of the explosive plays just with communication and understand the formation and the situation,” he said. “I think it’s good stuff to learn from going into Big Ten play.”
The 24-23 loss at Texas remains the only result that actually cost Ohio State a win. The defense allowed 336 yards and, more important, could not get off the field in the fourth quarter. Texas ran for 67 yards on 16 carries during the comeback. Red-zone stops that defined Patricia’s first season in 2025 did not show up when the game was on the line.
Illinois was not as lethal, and the Buckeyes still bent without fully breaking. The Illini scored two touchdowns. They settled for two field goals. They turned the ball over on downs near the goal line. On nine Illinois drives, Ohio State allowed two touchdowns. That is a championship-adjacent profile if the explosive plays disappear. It is a liability if Iowa, Indiana, USC, Oregon or Michigan can hit those same creases.
The offense can cover a lot of that. Sayin threw for 367 yards Saturday. Smith finished with 12 catches, 217 yards and four scores. Ohio State does not need 2025’s historic defense to win the Big Ten. It needs a defense that can get off the field on third down, keep the run game in front of it and survive a low-scoring road night.
Saturday at Kinnick Stadium is that test. Iowa is 4-0, ranked No. 14, and allows 8 points per game. The Hawkeyes will try to shorten the game, run the ball and make Ohio State’s front seven play assignment football for 60 minutes. A 462-yard afternoon will not travel.
The fixes are not schematic overhauls. Patricia does not need a new system. He needs cleaner execution inside the one he already has.
Settle the defensive line. Rotate for freshness, but stop searching for the “right combination” in real time against Power Four offenses. Houston has to be a game-wrecker inside. Walker has to occupy blockers. Someone on the edge besides Jackson has to win one-on-ones without leaving the run game exposed.
Play assignment football at linebacker. Pettijohn’s burst is a weapon on designed blitzes. It is a problem when he leaves his gap. Alford’s range is a weapon until he overruns the ball. Pierce and Alliegro have to be the glue. The four-man rotation is a strength only if all four know the call, the formation and their fit before the snap.
Balance the pressure. Extra blitzes produced three sacks against Illinois and eight explosives. That trade is unacceptable against teams that can throw and run. Patricia’s NFL background is built on simulated pressures and disguised looks that do not empty a gap. Those have to become the base, not the exception.
Clean up the back end. The pass breakups show the talent is there. The penalties and occasional busted coverage show the communication is not automatic yet. Downs made that automatic last year. Little, McClain and Moore have to get there in October, not November.
Accept a different standard — then meet it. This defense will not suffocate teams the way the last two did. It does not have to. It has to be good enough that Sayin and Smith are playing with a lead in the fourth quarter instead of protecting one. Red-zone defense against Illinois was a start. Third-down defense has to follow.
Day’s postgame tone after a 23-point win was the tell. He was not celebrating. He was already on the film. That is the correct posture. The offense has given this team permission to win a different way. The defense has four weeks of evidence that the old way is gone and the new way is not finished.
Iowa will not wait for the finished version. Neither will the rest of the Big Ten.
