Former Rutgers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Greg Schiano was a guest at Ohio State spring practice last week.

Chris Ash Post-Practice Q&A 03-20-14

Urban Meyer was hoping for some observations for the defensive side of the ball.

New Ohio State co-defensive coordinator / safeties coach Chris Ash said Schiano was in meetings and provided suggestions for the defensive staff.

“Coach Schiano’s been a very successful coach in a lot of different stops,” Ash said. “He’s a great defensive mind, very smart, very intelligent. He got a chance to come out and evaluate our practices. He’s watched some film with us. I got to pick his brain on some things, whether it be scheme things, fundamental things, just different philosophies on defense, so it’s been great to have him around for a couple days.”

“The one thing that stood out to him, he’s been in the NFL the last couple years, practices are different in college. The effort’s a little bit better. There’s a little more physicality in the college game than the NFL game. He likes the way we practice. That’s the No. 1 thing he’s seen.”

Meyer has emphasized a desire to see effort and quick decisions more than trying to understand the scheme. That has been Ash’s focus, and he knows Ohio State isn’t going to have a complicated defense.

“It gets back to the effort and not making a lot of mental mistakes,” he said. “The way you get great effort and minimizing mental errors is simplicity. Be simple with your approach and do what you do extremely well, then you can branch off from there. We’ve got to be great teachers, teaching the concepts, getting them to understand how we want them to play, and we’ll expand more.

“But we’re not going to be a defense that’s going be a ‘guru defense’ or ‘junk’ defense. We’re going to be executors of what we do. It’s going to be about the effort and the fundamentals and consistency.”