Larry Johnson, the guru developer of NFL pass rushers, fields question after question about each player he is expected to deploy this season on Ohio State’s defensive front.

Johnson patiently responds, but what he really wants to discuss is the sum of the parts. Yes, JT Tuimoloau is good. So is Jack Sawyer and Mike Hall and Kenyatta Jackson and on and on. Johnson’s job is to put a group on the field that contributes to an elite defense and helps the Buckeyes beat the teams they haven’t beaten the past 2 seasons.

Alpha dogs might emerge. But that’s not Johnson’s emphasis.

“We’ve challenged our guys to ‘let’s be part of a pack,’ ” said Johnson, a 71-year-old in his 10th season in Columbus and 28th in the Big Ten. “ ’Let’s be part of a unit that does everything special.’ We’re trying not to say ‘that guy’s got this skill.’ How about we put all those skills together and go play as a unit and try to become the best unit in college football.”

A unit that is one of the nation’s leaders in sacks and controls the run game would be a major piece to a championship run. That’s Ohio State’s target, this year like every year.

Pass rushing isn’t just dependent on the ends, Johnson says. The tackles have to create enough disruption to give the ends more one-on-one freedom. Blitzers have to be on time. Defensive coordinator Jim Knowles has been fond of leaving the cornerbacks on islands with zero coverage blitzes.

Those blitzes were costly in losses last season, but the blame can be shared by the front four and blitzers not getting home.

So Johnson is working with starters Tuimoloau and Sawyer and backups Jackson and Caden Curry to improve their getting-home percentage. Mike Hall in the middle also figures to be part of that group that knocks down the quarterback.

Getting more out of the pass rush takes a lot more than getting stronger — which they all have — getting quicker, getting meaner and simply being more motivated. Johnson loves to teach technique, and he doesn’t let a rep go by without video analysis.

“It’s called freeze, pause, practice and watch every step every player takes to make sure he’s not taking a shorter step, a wide step,” Johnson said. “It’s got to be efficient your first step.”

Johnson’s attention to detail helped the Bosa brothers and Chase Young become great. If his current athletes learn as well as those superstars did, then this year’s unit will take a big step forward.

“What we’re trying to do in our evaluation of every play that we watch, we pause it to watch every step to make sure it’s correct,” Johnson said. “And once we can fix those steps and get him to understand that he’s got to cross the line of scrimmage on the first step, then you start developing.”

Johnson’s best units have been deep, and he’s used that depth. When pressed in mid-August on how much he would rotate players, Johnson wasn’t ready to say who all would be involved and to what extent.

Again, that decision involves more film study and analysis. No one can go 90 plays against big, strong offensive linemen. So there will be some rotation, but Johnson balked at the idea that his philosophy is to rotate players. Instead, his philosophy is to determine each player’s maximum endurance and play them accordingly.

“In practice we have these 4- or 6-play periods where you want to see how long can a guy go at full speed,” Johnson said. “That’s the determination. How many plays that guy can actually play in a game.”

Johnson’s job, then, is to keep each man fresh enough so that they are all going full speed in the fourth quarter. If that works like he wants, then it won’t matter who’s getting the sacks and the tackles for loss on running plays. And that’s the way Johnson wants it.

“Imagine having 4 guys who have the skill set to rush the quarterback, and no one cares who gets the credit because now, all of a sudden, you have 4 guys have a major impact,” Johnson said. “We don’t look at [individual] stats, we look at the unit stats. What did we do as a unit? Are we applying pressure? We have to wait and see how it goes.”

However it goes, the pass rush will be improved. Don’t worry who gets the sacks, because Johnson won’t be.