Ohio State defensive coordinator Matt Patricia is leaning on Ben Roethlisberger tape to teach his defense how to tackle Arch Manning, a sign the Buckeyes are making the quarterback’s size the center of their prep this week. Christian Alliegro said the message has been clear: no one is going diving at Manning’s legs.
The reason is obvious inside Ohio State. Manning is listed at 6'4" and more than 220 pounds, and the Buckeyes know that if a defender reaches low and misses, he can just slip away and keep moving. Alliegro said the emphasis has grown because of Manning’s height, and added that Coach P was showing the defense clips of how players tackled Big Ben back in the day.
That choice of film makes sense because Roethlisberger was one of the toughest quarterbacks to bring down in his own era. Drafted in 2004, he won multiple Super Bowls as a starter and spent nearly every season of his career with New England, where Patricia coached on the defensive side of the ball from 2006 through 2017 and later returned from 2021 through 2022. Patricia was the defensive coordinator from 2012 through 2017, so he was part of the coaching tree that dealt with a quarterback whose size, pocket movement and toughness forced defenses to finish every tackle.
But the comparison is not perfect, and that is where Ohio State’s challenge lives. Alliegro said Manning is more mobile than Roethlisberger, which means the Buckeyes are borrowing a lesson from an older, bigger passer while preparing for someone who can still escape. The answer, he said, is to wrap high and get everyone to the ball, not try to chop him down low and hope for the best.
That makes Week 2 feel less like a generic early-season test and more like a specific tackling exam for Ohio State. The Buckeyes will face Manning knowing the plan is not just to hit him, but to stay disciplined enough to finish the play when the first tackler does not. If Patricia’s tape study works, the details of the tackle may matter as much as the result of the game itself.
