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Ross Fulton Analysis: Is The Lack Of Production From Ohio State's Defensive Ends A Concern? · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes Tomorrow morning for Friday, September fifteenth. I'm your host,
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  tom Or. The Western Kentucky game is tomorrow, the game against Michigan in
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  seventy one days. We are back with our buddy Ross Fulton of Buckeye Huddle
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  dot Com. He's our ex's nose guru, and we're Today we're gonna be
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  taking a look at the defense. If you want to hear about the offense,
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  well, you can go ahead and listen to yesterday show. We broke
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  down a bunch of plays from the Buckeyes win over Youngstown State and took a
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  little bit of a look ahead at what that could mean for this weekend against
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  the Hilltoppers. Today, we're gonna be talking about the defense, and Ross,
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  I guess before we really dive into any of these plays, I wanted
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  to ask you about the production or you know, maybe lack of production from
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  the defensive ends. They have not really gotten to the quarterback yet this year,
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  and I think that's been a little bit of a source of concern from
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  Ohio State fans. I saw space Coyote on Twitter, who is generally a
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  Michigan fans, who is generally pretty insightful on this stuff, talk about it
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  as potentially being something that's sort of tied in with Jim Knowles's scheme and how
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  he uses those guys. They talked on during the interviews on Tuesday as if
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  that was more of an issue with the opponents and what the opponents were and
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  we're not doing against the Buckeyes. Is it one of those? Is it
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  both of those? Is it something else? What is the deal with the
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  defensive ends and not having any sex so far this year? Yeah, it's
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  basically out a good front of the program. Heavily recommend his his stuff.
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  It's a combination of all of those. So, like the first cript clip
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  I grabbed is particularly go on rundowns, you will see Knowls pinch in his
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  defensive line and including the ends quite a bit too spill the football outside,
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  but that that applies less so on third down or passing downs. You know,
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  the both opponents obviously Indie end Up didn't throw very much. Young Sound
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  State as we'll talk about, dropped the football out very quickly a lot of
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  the time. Probably as as they're concerned about the pass rush. You know,
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  I think like you have to separate out uh, JT and Sawyer.
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  Like, to me, JT is like a you know, Cam Hayward or
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  Rashawn Garrett. He's like a very stared, prototypical like strong side defensive end,
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  and so like he's really good against the run, like he does create
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  pressure. I'm just don't he's not gonna be like Chase Young, who's like,
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  you're stereotypical weak side Russian. So I like, I don't really have
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  a ton of concern there. Frankly, like Jack Sawyer's production is a little
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  bit more concerning to me. I mean, he's pretty good against the run,
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  so that's something he does. Seem like there were multiple instances during the
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  game where he was slow out of his stance and I'm not sure why that
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  was a thing, but like you know, you can freeze it after the
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  ball snapped and like everyone's off and he's still in his stance, and I
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  just I'm not sure he's going to be someone who gets a lot of pressure.
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  I mean, maybe he'll maybe he'll prove prove us all wrong. I
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  did think you started to see King Curry brought in someone passing down to that
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  spot, and I think he has a little bit more ability to create pressure,
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  and so I do think there's there's some scheme issues, there's some opponent
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  scheme issues, but there is also I think some lagging concern going forward,
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  particularly from that well they you know, and this is part of it.
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  They don't flip their ends at all in terms of strong side and weak side,
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  but from what I would consider like your typical weekend position or you know,
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  for them their right defensive end. All right, So then you mentioned,
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  you know that the first play that we're going to be looking at will
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  kind of help illustrate some of this. So let's talk about it. The
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  Buckey's bringing corner blitz and young sound State does exactly what you want to do
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  when they bringing quarter blitz, you run the other way. And then they
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  had to pick up a nice game there. So what did you how does
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  this sort of lay out what you're you know, what you're talking about here?
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  Again, you can find lots of clips like this, and like even
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  putting aside the blitz, like you can see both ends come down side into
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  the beat gap like you have both you have both defensive tackles hitting the A
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  gap. Both hit both defensive vents come inside the tackles in the beat gap.
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  So that's like that's exactly what space Cocoty is talking about. Like that's
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  what Noels likes to do. Again, we've talked about before, like he
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  wants the ball to spill outside. The problem I have even probably more so
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  than the pressure. And there were multiple instances like this play where the ball
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  was spilled outside and it was spilled to no one or like people were out
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  of position and like you know, Knowles I think talked about and on the
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  Tuesday press conference like people were freelancing and maybe that's the issue. But like
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  you know this play for instance, like Sunny Styles gets blocked inside like he
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  can't get caught inside Aikenberg's kind of in no man's land. It could be
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  the situation like this play is like second, you know, three minutes to
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  go in the second quarter, they have a blitz on, so it could
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  be like they you know, he's setting up to drop and coverage. But
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  like you saw a little bit of improvement at times in the second half where
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  like they line the linebackers up wider so that they were they were there to
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  spill. But like other situations where like the football would get kicked outside and
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  there would be either like in the scheme, no one there and or someone
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  would miss a tackle. And so you know, like the pass rush is
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  one thing, but like the run defense also had some issues, and this
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  was the biggest concern. And so I think that at a minimum, you
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  want to see better cohesion between the eleven people and the positions they're supposed to
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  be and flowing to the football, all right, And one of the kind
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  of concerns with Ohio State, at least just from a high level perspective the
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  first couple of weeks is the defense not always getting off the field on third
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  down as often as you'd like them to. This next one is a third
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  and four play, Youngstown State picks up a first down. It's in the
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  red zone. This one set up the first Youngstown State touch and on the
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  only Youngstown State touchdown. But you know what happens here. Yeah, So
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  Jim Knowles talked a lot about at his Tuesday press conference out how it's like
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  philosophy has changed, and I haven't. It's a sort of a small sample
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  size thus far. But like he did talk about though that early on that
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  first drive, he was trying to kind of get the defense like they were
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  kind of you know they were Young Stounds State was driving out the field.
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  He was trying to flip it and get a stop. And so you do
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  see a cover zero blitz here, but a lot of and this goes to
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  the defensive end pass rushed too. Like a lot of what Young Stoun State
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  did was just like these two step drops and throw a h out to the
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  slot receiver and it was consistently open because Ohio State was just like playing with
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  soft coverage on the inside receivers in particular, and cover one and so like
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  soft into the inside, which is someone protecting themselves. But like again,
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  you need to marry the front up with the coverage, and it's just it's
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  too easy. If you're gonna bring it covers zero blitz, you want to
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  make the quarterback hold the ball long enough to get there. I mean,
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  like Ty Hamilton comes in, he's literally not blocked and he doesn't even have
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  enough time to get there because it's just too easy to throw on third and
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  four. And so I bet I bet Young Sounds Day through at least six
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  to eight of these quick out routes to the slot receiver. You know,
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  sometimes they weren't completed because of you know, I think Jordan Hancock got a
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  little bit tighter coverage, and you know, we can talk about their rotation
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  at the nickel position here coming up, because I do think that's important going
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  forward because but you know, I just think they're just it just remains sort
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  of too predictable, like they're Cover zero. They kind of played off coverage
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  like again, and we can talk about like their blitz schemes coming up here
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  on the next play as well. Like you know, people have made the
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  point it's like sort of all or nothing, like they're bringing three or four
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  or they're bringing like a Cover one or Cover zero blitz, and you know,
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  I continue to wonder, like where are like the sim pressures we've talked
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  about where you're bringing for but you're bringing a linebacker and dropping a defensive end
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  and playing like Cover two or Cover three behind it, or even a fire
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  zund with five and Cover three behind it. And so I mean, maybe
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  he's just saving that variety, but it was it was pretty lacking last year,
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  and so you know, until we see it, it's a little concerning.
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  Yeah, it's interesting because he talked on Tuesday about wanting to mix things
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  up and not be predictable. And sort of self scouting and what you did
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  in the past and not doing that same stuff, and then it sounds like
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  a lot of that is happening. But you know this, this is maybe
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  potentially, like you, like you sort of said there, potentially the flip
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  side of it. You don't want to show too much on offense, you
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  know, in games where you know you're going to win and you're going to
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  save it for Notre Dame or wherever. So we may know more about that
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  in a couple of weeks. Next up, let's talk about a third and
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  fifteen, a third down play where they did get off the field the defense
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  I think it was Davis nig Nooson in coverage here. But what walk us
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  through this next play? Yeah, and so this is an example of at
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  least like a little bit of variety. Right, So you're bringing you're bringing
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  the double a gap pressure. So he likes, you know, Noel's likes
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  running a cross dog with the two linebackers where basically they crossing across, you
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  know, against one another. One of them sort of pins in the center
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  to try to free the other one and then it's a it is cover one,
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  so it's not his own blitz, but he is dropping the two defensive
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  ends as rats, and so it's kind of trying again trying to take away
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  that like the quick underneath throws, Like if you're gonna bring pressure, you
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  know, you want to limit the ability to just like get the ball out
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  quickly like happened on the previous cover zero example. We did so again,
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  I think it just sort of emphasizes the need for more of this variety and
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  schemes. Like you know, Noel's talks about again not being too aggressive right
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  on Tuesday, and like the flip side of not being too aggressive is that
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  you can have happened to you what happened on Saturday, which is like yet
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  saw State obviously like FCS opponent put that aside, scored only one touchdown on
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  the flip side, they like, and the reason why they scored one touchdown
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  is because they couldn't create explosive plays, but they could dink and their way
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  down the field. And it just be annoying that they're playing ball control and
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  you can't get the football back because you're like keeping things in front of you,
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  but you're you're not creating negative plays. And so again I just feel
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  like the happy medium that seems to be missing is like four and five man
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  zone pressures that makes up where the rush is coming from and still keeps the
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  football in front of them and lets them play like their cover base cover three.
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  And it's like you want to talk about getting pressure, like part of
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  that is like not allowing the offense to know where the rush is coming from
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  or what lanes people are going to hit. Well, you mentioned dink and
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  dunk, and this was quite a little dink and dunk play from Youngstown State.
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  This last one we're gonna look at. This is a creative use of
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  motion to help get a guy open in the flat. And I don't think
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  you loved how his defense responded to this one. So what's the let's let's
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  take a look at this last play. Yeah, And so before we get
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  into like the play itself, I want to like back up and talk about
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  because I do think this Nickel situation is important for o High State and it
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  also is I think pretty critical. Right, So, like we talked last
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  week, like what is how like you know you have sunny styles and Nickel
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  against Indiana made a ton of sense, Like how's that going to work when
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  you face a team that's more traditional eleven personnel with a slot wide receiver.
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  And it turns out that like you know, styles for all intense purposes is
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  the sam linebacker and so he comes off. He's gonna come off the field
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  when a team is into passing downs or you know, more spread out.
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  And so at first they put in Cam Martinez and uh, you know,
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  which is like the next gradation of like he also practices the Nickel position,
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  but a very different body, right, but he gets beat on the slot
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  fade. So then they go to Jordan Hancock, which I do think like,
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  if you're gonna have styles and for otherwise, like it makes sense like
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  if you're gonna bring in coverage, you might as well bring in the third
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  corner, especially someone you trust. And I do think that helped passing wise.
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  The downside is that you know, I don't know how many reps he's
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  actually had at Nickel and it shows here. And I think in general,
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  there was a lot of issues with the high state handling youngstound states wide receiver
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  motion orbit motions, you know, jet motions, which is kind of ironic
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  because they're the concept of the three safeties is supposed to make it easy to
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  adjust emotion. But because they played so much Cover one, they obviously wanted
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  to chase motion in this game. And so like this is the extreme example
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  right where they run a yo yo motion and I don't know if people didn't
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  didn't there wasn't enough chatter amongst the defense or just Hancock lack of reps got
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  lost. But like as you can see, he kept chasing and ended up
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  thinking the running back was his was his responsibility of coverage, but instead it's
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  an easy throw into the flat. So you know, I guess I may
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  be signing like a little negative on the defense, and I think there was
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  some definite you know, I don't think Noels sounded particularly happy with how the
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  defense played either. I mean, you know, we talked about last week
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  that like Indiana playing in a phone booth is like gonna find Ohio State,
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  Like they want to put their two hundred and thirty pound you know, Nickel
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  on the field and Josh Procter legs coming down hill, Lathan Ransom lights coming
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  downhill, but like, you know, how are they going to handle space?
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  And like that was the issue last year, and you know, I
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  think they need so in some ways this game was good before they could play
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  Western Kentucky. Who's going to max and play do that to the maximum to
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  get some of these reps under their belts where some of these things go wrong,
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  because I think they have a lot to build on in terms of covering
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  space. All right, and I'm gonna go on this one. We talked
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  on Tuesday about the fact that this is Western Kentucky is not like a true
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  air raid, like a total you know, Mike Leach clone, but it's
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  air raid adjacent enough that you're getting stressed in some different ways. How is
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  that going to present a challenge for this defense and what are you how are
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  you looking for a high state to be able to respond to that? Yeah,
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  I mean I think it's going to present a big challenge. Like I
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  mean, for all the reasons we've talked about. You know, if they're
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  going to play cover one, I think they're gonna get messed with a lot
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  with this kind of motions. You know, I think they if they're gonna
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  bring pressure, like, they're gonna have to be sound. You know,
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  you've got a situation again. It's like I think you'll probably see a lot
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  of Jordan Hancock at Nicole. He you know, you need to get the
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  reps because like the most critical situations like that's who's going to be in there.
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  You know, you've got a free safety position. That's kind of a
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  morass right now, Like you gotta hope if Josh Proctors are starter, which
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  it sounds like from Jim Know on Tuesday he is like you gotta hope he's
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  back, and you still have to see how he's going to handle playing there.
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  But again, like you know, I will continue to beat the drum
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  that like more variety and coverage, like being more sound, not getting yourself,
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  being too transparent, playing man coverage are all things that they're going to
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  have to work on, and so I do think it's gonna be a good
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  test for them. All right, we will be watching that test and then
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  next week Rus will be back to grade that test here on the Buckeyes Tomorrow
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  Morning podcast and the You can just search for Ross Fulton Analysis on YouTube.
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  I'm trying to name all these things with that phrase in there to make them
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  easier to find for you. But if you are watching this on YouTube and
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  you were not subscribed to our channel, make sure you do that at YouTube
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  dot com slash Buckeye Huddle. We have lots of great content from Ross,
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  but lots of great content from our other contributors, covering the team, covering
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  recruiting, covering excess, and nose all to make you a smarter football fan.
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  All at YouTube dot com, slash Buckeye Huddle and Buckeye Huddle dot com
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  that we'll do it for today. Thank you guys all for joining us up
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  a great day. We'll talk tomorrow