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Did Tony Alford Bring The Ohio State Playbook To Michigan? · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Saturday, March sixteenth, I'm your host Tom
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  Moore. The Akron Game in one hundred and sixty eight days, the Game
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  of Kainst. Michigan in two hundred and fifty nine days. Our series on
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  the fallout from the Tony Alfred departure from Ohio State running backs coach to Michigan
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  running backs coach continues today. Yesterday we talked to Mark Gifler about the recruiting
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  fallout and what this might mean on the recruiting trail for twenty twenty five and
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  beyond. Today we're going to be talking about what it might mean on the
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  football field this year. We're going to be doing that with Ross Fulton,
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  the ex's and o's guru at bucke Huddle dot com, and when we have
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  Ross on the show. We are sponsored by Jeff Ruby Steakhouse, proudly offering
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  nationally acclaimed USDA Prime Stakes, seafood and sushi, impeccable service, live entertainment,
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  Jeffruby dot COM's lash Columbus to check out the menu and make a reservation.
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  Today all right ross. The timing of this move Tony Alfred to Michigan.
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  You know, the destination of this move is obviously kind of the big story.
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  The timing of this move also not great. It was, you know,
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  talk to Mark a little bit yesterday. It's not great for recruiting twenty
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  twenty five. Not great for the fact that you're already a couple of practices
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  in the Spring Bowl. I think the real question is how big of a
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  deal of this is this in terms of, Hey, chip Kelly is there,
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  He's shown, you know, put out his new playbook. He's presumably
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  talked to the staff about, you know, the new terminology and all that
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  kind of stuff. There are only two practices into the spring. But you
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  know, how how much is Ohio State potentially getting caught with their pants down
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  here? I don't think it that much. I mean, again, as
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  we've talked about, I mean, chip Kelly is like, there's not a
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  new playbook quote unquote right, Like, it's a lot of it's primarily what
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  they've been doing in Ohio State. So you know, Tony Alfred was going
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  to know that regardless of what if he left a month ago, two months
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  ago, et cetera. You know, Ryan Day talked about that they're keeping
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  the same terminology to make it easier on the players, and Chip Kelly's adopting
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  their terminology, so like that doesn't mean there won't be like changes and what
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  they emphasize and like around the edges, but it does. I don't think
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  just by the fact that they've had two spring practices, like Tony Afford would
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  have that information regardless, you know. And it again, like the terminology
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  like an opposing teams, that doesn't matter for an opposing team, right,
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  Like, as we well know, the only thing that matters is your signals,
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  and that obviously like they're they're gonna have to change your signals either way
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  they I mean, they have plenty of time to do that. Again,
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  like in two practices, they probably weren't implementing a lot of that, so
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  I you know, I do think it's obviously not great in terms of continuity
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  once you've you sort of kicked off the season here quote unquote, but I
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  don't think it the scheme wise, it's going to have like that big of
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  an impact. I mean, by the time you play Michigan, like everything
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  you do on scheme wise is on film anyways, So in terms of the
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  playbook itself, I mean, there was a report out of Michigan that,
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  you know, the negotiation has been going on for weeks and Tony Alfred is
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  bringing the playbook with him and he's got he's got the whole thing. And
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  Tony Alfred jumped on Twitter to address he replied to one of the tweets about
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  that and just replied to quote way false. So that's even more false than
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  false, I guess. But you know, I mean, if if he
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  does have the you know, the whole playbook, I mean, how much
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  is in the playbook that they haven't put on film yet or that you know,
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  there may be saving for Michigan. Is that stuff that obviously they're not,
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  you know, working on the secret play to beat Michigan on day two
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  of spring practice? Right? But how much of that stuff evolves between March
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  fourteenth and November thirtieth this year and how much of that is already kind of
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  out there and then they might have to change things. So, as far
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  as I know, I don't think there is like one playbook. I don't
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  think you know, a lot of coaches don't put together like a physically well,
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  no one would do it physically anymore, but a single digital copy of
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  all our plays in one place. I mean some do, like Nick Saban's
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  always had one that everyone on the internet can find. That has never prevented
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  Nick Saban's defenses from being really good. I think this is like a very
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  overblown thing that stems from the misconception that there's a lot of different plays out
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  there that are unique to one team. Like again, everyone runs the same
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  stuff, Like Michigan has nine months right, Like they have plenty of hours
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  they could sit there and recreate Ohio State's entire playbook, and like the concepts
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  are eighty five percent of what they do overlaps what Michigan has been running.
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  So that doesn't mean that they don't emphasize different things. They don't call it
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  different things, they don't run it from different personnel packages and the like.
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  But it's again like inside zone, outside zone, power countertrait like these are
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  not you know, Snag White Cross, Like I can drill these concepts off
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  at the top of my head because everyone uses them. So I again,
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  like Tony Alfred, like you know, he's going to have a lot of
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  information. But like coaches move around a lot, coaches go to coaching clinics,
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  as I said, like Nick Saban was literally to literally and figuratively an
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  open book on their system, which is why in part where you see a
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  ton of discussion of you know, their man matching concepts and things that the
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  Alabama and his his proteges do because they like to talk about it so much
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  at coaching clinics and invite people down. So I just don't think again,
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  like as I said, the most acute thing is like you you would have
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  to change your signals. I would assume they kind of they would probably do
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  that year to year anyway, and maybe runner removed by helmets microphones anyways.
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  So I just I don't think there's like some secret sauce out there that like
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  he's going to have access to, I mean to your question, like I'm
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  assuming that, I mean, chim Kelly got here relatively late, so this
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  may be a little but not entirely on point. I'm sure they've talked through
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  the nuts and bolts of like what they want to do offensively, what they
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  want to change relative to the last couple of years. But like, yeah,
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  like anything specific for Michigan, like if you're pulling out some kind of
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  gadget play that they wouldn't have practiced that yet, And like those things just
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  don't matter as much as people want to make them out to be. You
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  mentioned the helmet technology there, and I feel like that's kind of been a
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  little bit of an underreported piece of this season because there's so much stuff changing
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  with college football and that's just you know, that's like thirteenth on the list,
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  and in normal year it might be first. And you've got all the
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  conferences changing in the college football playoff and all the other stuff, so it's
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  kind of gotten a little bit lost. How much does that impact, you
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  know, if you know the signals, like you said, they're going to
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  change them anyway, but it feels like the whole game is going to change
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  around the signaling and the helmet technology going in next year potentially. Yeah,
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  I mean that it'll be really interesting. I don't know what teams are because,
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  like in the NFL people use it, but most teams huddle, right,
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  so you you send the signal into the quarterback through their helmet and they
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  relay it in the huddle, if you want to know huddle. I don't
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  know how that's going to work. I don't think the plan is to give
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  everyone radios in their helmets, so I think there there would still be signaling
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  involved. It'll be interesting to see whether it leads to more use of huddling.
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  We're starting to see like sort of a return to that in some ways.
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  Obviously Michigan was a big example of that. They huddled all the time,
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  So I don't know, It'll be interesting again to see the impacts,
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  But yeah, I think that don't have a bigger impact than anything like Tony
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  Alford taking stuff to me to Michigan will all right. And then finally I
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  just want to ask sort of the on field impact. I asked Mark about
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  this on yesterday Yesterday's show, and he didn't seem to think that this was
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  going to make a huge impact on this year's team, just because they have
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  to really experience veteran backs at the head of the running back class. Do
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  you have any concerns that this is going to represent a real challenge for Ohio
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  State in the running back room or on offense in general. Losing Tony Elford
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  at this point of calendar, I mean, I know I would agree with
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  Mark. I would. I'm sorry this will probably anger running back coaches everywhere
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  But if I had to pick one position coach that I would consider the least
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  important, it's the running backs coach, because I think so much of playing
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  running back is based on your natural ability and vision. That does not diminish
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  that there's things to work on. It's just a less technical, less developmental
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  position than some other ones. And as you said, there's you know,
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  to me, the biggest impact of a running back coach has is in the
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  recruiting department, because running backs are sort of think they're often born, not
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  made, and so I just think that, you know, to the extent
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  it has an impact there that would matter. But I just don't think particularly
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  with Trey von Hunderson quick John Jenkins, I mean, Tony Alford was not
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  in charge of the run game. He was in charge of things scheme wise.
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  So yeah, I see a pretty limited impact as well. All Right,
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  Well, that's not going to keep us from talking about Tony Alford being
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  at Michigan. I'm sure that's Sugara be talking about Michigan quite a bit the
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  rest of the year. I'm sure the Tony Alfred story is going to be
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  quite a story all throughout the year as well. Boy, it's going to
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  be a fascinating year for Ohio State football, for Michigan football, for college
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  football in general. Man oman Is there gonna be a lot to talk about
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  and a great place to talk about it all is at pucke huddle dot com.
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  That's where Tony, Kevin and I cover the team, Mark covers recruiting,
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  ross and our whole team of exss in those gurus. Make you a
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  smarter football fan. That's they are all on the huddle board presented by Jeff
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  Ruby Steakhouse. That's where we talk to you. Make you a smarter football
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  fan, let you know what we're hearing, behind the scenes, and much
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  much more. You want to get the inside details on Ohio State football,
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  just go to Buckeyhuddle dot com and sign up to become a member today.
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  Also, you can find us on YouTube at YouTube dot com slash Buckeyehuddle.
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  We are right about to cross the twenty thousand subscriber mark on YouTube, so
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  that's pretty fun for us. Hope to see you there as well, and
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  reservation today. That'll do it for today. Thank you guys all for joining
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  us. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow