Seven games into the season, Matt Patricia’s Ohio State defense has still allowed fewer total points all season (41) than Jim Knowles’ Penn State defense allowed to UCLA (42).
When Jim Knowles left Ohio State after last year’s national championship run to become the defensive coordinator at Penn State, the expectation was that the Nittany Lions would have one of the best defenses in the country. After all, Knowles had the best defense in the country in his final season at Ohio State, and was inheriting a Penn State roster full of talented veteran defenders like defensive linemen Dani Dennis-Sutton and Zane Durant, linebacker Tony Rojas, cornerback A.