A Midseason Check-In On Jim Knowles Defense At Penn State Compares To Matt Patricia's At Ohio State

Okay so as we all know, Jim Knowles left Ohio State this offseason to become the highest paid coordinator in college football history.

Ohio State was truly devastated with the departure, absolutely gutted, and they were left to fill such a monumental void with Matt Patricia, who the rest of the country deemed a bad hire.

About halfway through the season, let’s check in on how each has done thus far:

Through 5 games, Matt Patricia’s defense is…..number in the country in points allowed at 25. To be clear, that’s 25 points total. 5 points per game. Jim Knowles and Penn State has been very good as well, only giving up 42 points. Oh wait that’s not the entire season, that’s just to 0-4 UCLA who held a grand total of zero leads this season and fired their coach already because they were the worst team in the country.

But it must be noted that Penn State had to travel all the way out to the west coast for that one. It’s hard to do. I mean, when Matt Patricia and the Buckeyes traveled out to play what PFF deemed “the best quarterback, runningback, wide receiver trio in the country” out in Washington, they gashed the Buckeyes for….oh nevermind they didn’t score a touchdown the entire game. Credit to Washington though, their 6 points was better than what Ohio State has been giving up each game.

…..Ohio State has now given up less than 200 yards 3x this season. Penn State has given up over 425 yards in each of the last two weeks.

Okay I might be a little biased because one time Jim Knowles wife or cousin or sister or someone tweeted at me to “get my facts straight”, so let’s go to an unbiased source on the topic of who’s done a better job:

To be fair, the Gophers haven’t played Penn State this season and won’t until 2026. Well unless James Franklin tries to help out on defense, Jim Knowles gets upset instead of getting better, and he runs to the next place…..