Ohio State had faced a ripple effect of their championship year, and it hasn’t been fun. Days after they lifted the trophy, Ryan Day saw his players leave either for the portal or the draft, culminating in a mass exodus. The draft entrants included QB Will Howard, DE Jack Sawyer and J.T. Tuimoloau, DT Tyleik Williams and Ty Hamilton, WR Emeka Egbuka, RB TreVeyon Henderson, among others. Then there were transfers in OL George Fitzpatrick and Zen Michalski, safety Jaden Bonsu, and DT Hero Kanu.

But it’s not just the players. Day suffered huge losses in the coaching room as well, with OC Chip Kelly and DC Jim Knowles also signing off from their Buckeyes roles and moving to the Las Vegas Raiders and Penn State, respectively. But it seems Knowles had some unfinished business with D-Line coach Larry Johnson. Did they end on a bad term?

Former coordinator Jim Knowles has always been a hermit genius who stayed in his cave, planned his move, and led the team to a national championship, but not without certain pressures and limitations from the coaching room. He used multiple fronts at Oklahoma State before bringing it to Ohio State. Knowles experimented with using Jack Sawyer as the hybrid defensive end/linebacker “jack” position in his first season in 2022, but it was a futile try. Based on that, there have been a host of random online reports of some serious opinion clashes between Johnson and Knowles. Now, fueling that idea even more, Nittany Lions insider T-Frank revealed he evolved those ideas in his Penn State run as well.

”There were these hybrid players in Jim Knowles’ system. There’s one hybrid idea that evolved from one position to the other through force, essentially, circumstance. Well, I’m locked out of using this guy. How do I get that into my defense? And, then we see the evolution, the iteration going into Caleb Downs being that special player, that is doing those hybrid style roles but from a different place and from a different concept,” the PSU insider said after he had doubled down the rumored drama between Knowles and Johnson over Jack Swayer.

They stopped using a defensive end and eventually started experimenting with three safeties and playing a safety closer to the Box. But none of them went according to plan. But did it build up to a clash between OSU DL coach Larry Johnson and Knowles? Well, from Johnson’s side of the story, it’s a no.

“That’s what you thought, right? And so we looked at that. I was looking for a 3-4 defense. But you’ve got to remember, we have all these 4-3 guys here. And so you have to change. The way you recruit, you’ve got to change the defense, the scheme set, right? And I think we tried Jack’s already. And then as the season went on and teams were playing offensively, you know what I mean? It was predicated toward having four guys on the field and changing up,” the veteran Buckeyes coach came clean on the long-standing controversy with the different defensive approach. There were certain differences to be discussed and sorted, but both the coaches worked together, ensuring the best outcome for the team. It was never your way or my way kind of thing between them as the media has portrayed.

‘‘Jim and I had a really great conversation about what we were doing. There was never a moment where we were going, ‘Hey, I don’t want the 3-4.’ There was never that. It was like, ‘What’s the best with our players and how can we get a 3-4 team?’ And that was always the conversation,” Johnson reaffirmed his relation with Knowles during a conversation with Bucknuts 247Sports.

However, keeping aside the debates and doubts. Knowles’ arrival at Penn State certainly fuels their hope for a not-so-elusive championship year.

Jim Knowles aims for the stars at Penn State 

The national championship memory is still fresh in Jim Knowles’ memory, and there is no way he won’t strive to get the same taste of success in his new school. After all, he knows what it takes to win it all at the most elite level of college football. He knows what it feels like to soak in the confetti.

He created an extraordinary unit that overcame a series of issues in past years to reach the top and claim a national title in the first year of a 12-team college football playoff. Just when you think PSU doesn’t even come close to that level, Knowles likes to remind you that he believes the Nittany Lions are “close” to boasting the same accolades under their belt.

”I have one aspiration. I’m at that point in my career where you focus solely on the job at hand, and my aspiration is to help Penn State win the national championship and be the No. 1 defense in the country,” Knowles said. James Franklin and his team have that element stored for Knowles. It’s just a matter of utilizing things to their highest potential and coming out with something unfathomable in history. Despite the lone wolf defensive theory of Knowles, he can very well mount that kind of success, and it’s proven. A big plus for Franklin!