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Ross Fulton Analysis: How The Ohio State Defense Locked Down Tennessee · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Buckeyes Tomorrow morning for Thursday, December twenty seventh.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Tom Or. The Oregon game is in
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: five days, the game against Michigan in three hundred and
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  Speaker 1: thirty seven days. They were talking to our good friend
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  Speaker 1: Ross Fulton, the ex's and os guru bucke Huddle dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And when we have Ross on the show, we're sponsored
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  Speaker 1: by Jeff Rubies of Columbus, probably offering nationally acclaimed USDA
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  Speaker 1: Prime Stakes, seafood and sushi, and peckable service, live entertainment,
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  Speaker 1: and an attention to detailed simply unmatched. Just go to
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  Speaker 1: Jeff Ruby dot com slash Columbus, check out the menu,
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  Speaker 1: and make a reservation today. All right, So we're going
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  Speaker 1: to be looking back at the Ohio State defense. What
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  Speaker 1: they did well against Tennessee. Most of it worked. This
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  Speaker 1: is not quite as perfect as the offensive show was,
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  Speaker 1: but there's a lot of good stuff to that. Ankle
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  Speaker 1: High State fans are going to enjoy reliving and rewatching here.
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  Speaker 1: Let's start with the run game. Let's start we'll look
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  Speaker 1: at the how Ohio State used a term. This is
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  Speaker 1: a term that Ross has used when Ohio State first
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  Speaker 1: brought on Jim Knowles spill and kill and how that
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  Speaker 1: helped them really contain the Tennessee run game early on.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, the plan against Tennessee from the Ohio State defense
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  Speaker 2: is pretty simple, which was put numbers against the passing game,
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  Speaker 2: forced Tennessee to run the football and spill it outside.
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  Speaker 2: And so we saw a lot of three high defense
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  Speaker 2: from Ohio State. That's obviously a Gymnaal staple from his
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  Speaker 2: Oklahoma State days and post Oregon has increasingly become a
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  Speaker 2: part of the Ohio State package.
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  Speaker 3: This is probably it on its most fulsome display on.
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  Speaker 2: Saturday, and so you know right away we see like
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  Speaker 2: this is the second play of the game during this
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  Speaker 2: cover three to three high with Caleb Downs is the
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  Speaker 2: middle safety and we've talked about his role there is
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  Speaker 2: essentially almost like a mic linebacker because then you put
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  Speaker 2: the two actual linebackers on the outside hips of the
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  Speaker 2: defensive end. And as I said, so we're gonna they
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  Speaker 2: played cover two, so the corners are sitting in the flats.
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  Speaker 2: So this also helps against Tennessee a lot of Cover
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  Speaker 2: two to you know, when you have a hard corner
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  Speaker 2: to take away some of the reliefs or make tackles
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  Speaker 2: near the line of scrimmage and then as I said,
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  Speaker 2: they're spilling the football right. So, like we've talked about
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  Speaker 2: this as a problem before and how this was missing
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  Speaker 2: from Jim Knowles's defense here early in the season, and
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  Speaker 2: you know, post organ it has made a significant comeback.
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  Speaker 2: So at the snap, both the defensive ends are pinching inside.
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  Speaker 2: You know, Jack Sawyer takes on if this is a
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  Speaker 2: counter play from Tennessee, and Jack Sawyer takes on the
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  Speaker 2: block and forces you know, in the hole, which forces
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  Speaker 2: the ball to go outside of that what's supposed to
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  Speaker 2: be a kickout block, and then you just have klob
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  Speaker 2: downs as well as the linebackers there to clean it out.
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  Speaker 2: So again and again we saw them. You know, when
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  Speaker 2: you're doing this, obviously you are you know, your linebackers
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  Speaker 2: are pretty spread out, right, and that helps defend these
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  Speaker 2: the relief plays and the wide splits we talked about
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  Speaker 2: from Tennessee.
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  Speaker 3: But so then you.
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  Speaker 2: Make up for that by forcing the football to go
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  Speaker 2: to the sideline and so then it goes in the
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  Speaker 2: direction of where you have your linebackers and downs at
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  Speaker 2: the snap.
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  Speaker 1: All right, Next up, we're gonna be looking at I'd
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  Speaker 1: like to tell you which play this is, and I
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  Speaker 1: don't know how to explain this other than this is
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  Speaker 1: the one Riniko Iamalaiova got his helmet correct, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: otherwise I'm just saying, well, there's good coverage and then
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  Speaker 1: he scrambles and takes a big hit, which is like
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  Speaker 1: seventeen different plays, So this is the one of those
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  Speaker 1: where he gets his helmet correct.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and again, so this is sort of the other variation.
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  Speaker 2: I would consider this sort of a three high variation,
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  Speaker 2: probably is I bet how they define it.
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  Speaker 3: But you have Caleb Downs instead of being the middle
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  Speaker 3: safety though he is as the apex right, So like
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  Speaker 3: you again, you got these super wide splits and you
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  Speaker 3: have Jordan Hancock the nickel and Caleb Downs basically flipping roles.
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  Speaker 2: So Hancock's one of the two deep safeties here they're
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  Speaker 2: playing cover two again. Downs is at you know, that
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  Speaker 2: apex position we've talked about where he's sort of splitting
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  Speaker 2: the difference between the offensive tackle and the wide receiver,
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  Speaker 2: and that lets him play at an angle on the reliefs,
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  Speaker 2: you know. I mean, obviously he's a great athlete in space,
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  Speaker 2: so he can make up ground and then on this
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  Speaker 2: play like Tennessee, Like we talked about those wide splits.
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  Speaker 2: You know, almost everything is like a vertical route like
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  Speaker 2: and then like a comeback if if the route's capped
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  Speaker 2: or like in breaking dig route. So that's what you
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  Speaker 2: get here, and you get this seam route against cover two.
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  Speaker 2: But Downs is able to carry the scene.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: We've we've talked about like situations where you have a
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  Speaker 2: linebacker carrying a wide receiver. We're here here you have
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  Speaker 2: Downs doing it, which takes away that seam route, and
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  Speaker 2: the deep safety is able to cap the dig coming inside,
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  Speaker 2: which allows the pressure get home. You saw a lot
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  Speaker 2: of this too, Like we just talked about against the run,
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  Speaker 2: the defensive ends spiking inside. They did it a lot
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  Speaker 2: against the past too, pretty successfully.
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  Speaker 3: You know.
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  Speaker 2: It's sort of like a This is also how Jim
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  Speaker 2: Knowle's like. You know, when you spike your your defensive
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  Speaker 2: ends inside, you have you know, it can take away
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  Speaker 2: in theory some of the pass rush and you basically
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  Speaker 2: like and the defensive tackles kind of read it and
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  Speaker 2: loop around. Fortunately for State, like Jack Sawyer and J. T.
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  Speaker 2: Tumolow were so successful attacking the Tennessee tackles inside that
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  Speaker 2: it worked out pretty well because they were just beating
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  Speaker 2: them to the point of attack through the B gap
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  Speaker 2: and creating pressure. And you know, especially Tennessee, we'll get
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  Speaker 2: to some of like you know, the scrambles and whatnot,
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  Speaker 2: but like everything for them is like this half field
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  Speaker 2: read we talked about before the game. So like if
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  Speaker 2: those first couple options aren't there, Nico is just He's
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  Speaker 2: kind of starts scrambling around and looking to make a play.
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  Speaker 3: And so you know that allowed.
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  Speaker 2: Obviously gave them some scrambles, but also created you know,
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  Speaker 2: a lot of opportunities for negative plays for High State.
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  Speaker 1: You heard a bunch on the broadcast about Ohio State
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  Speaker 1: having spies to try and keep Nico's scrambles as limited
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  Speaker 1: as they could, and I'm going to guess that that
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  Speaker 1: is probably something you're going to hear a good bit
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  Speaker 1: as they try and figure out how to stop Dylan
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  Speaker 1: Gabriel in Oregon out in the Rose Bowl as well.
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  Speaker 1: But this is one where they had a spy and
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  Speaker 1: it did didn't work. It doesn't that doesn't necessarily mean
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  Speaker 1: you were stopping the quarterback from running. It just means
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  Speaker 1: makes it a little harder but you can still have
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  Speaker 1: the quarterback run even if you do have a spy
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  Speaker 1: in the field.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is again so Cover two, and again Tennessee
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  Speaker 2: obviously very spread out, and so you just don't really
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  Speaker 2: have anyone in the middle of the field naturally.
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  Speaker 3: And so what Ohio State does here.
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  Speaker 2: They did some different things to try to create a spy,
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  Speaker 2: but they use jt Tmlot here as sort of the
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  Speaker 2: spy to prevent him from rushing upfield. Now it doesn't
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  Speaker 2: work so well because he's able to get outside the
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  Speaker 2: pocket to the wide side of the field. And so
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  Speaker 2: you know, I think this one was less successful obviously,
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  Speaker 2: Like the majority of Tennessee's offense I would say, came
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  Speaker 2: from either scrambles or you know, they use design runs.
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  Speaker 2: They use some League QB draw they use that like
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  Speaker 2: lead outside zone run in sort of more like third
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  Speaker 2: and short yardage. That's how they scored their touchdown at
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  Speaker 2: the end of the half. You know, I guess, on
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  Speaker 2: the one hand, obviously this is going to be an
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  Speaker 2: shoe again with Dylan Gabriel in terms of his mobility.
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  Speaker 2: On the other hand, you know, there's all trade offs,
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  Speaker 2: and like even when it got to when it got
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  Speaker 2: to twenty one to ten, and you know, people were
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  Speaker 2: concerned just Tennessee at momentum. I mean, my thought at
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  Speaker 2: the time was like they had to grind out a
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  Speaker 2: touchdown drive with thirteen runs from their quarterback in the
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  Speaker 2: first half, and that's just like that's a lot of
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  Speaker 2: hits for a quarterback to take. I mean, you know,
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  Speaker 2: you talked about the helmet getting cracked. It's just it's
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  Speaker 2: not a really sustainable way to maintain offense with QB
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  Speaker 2: draws and like broken scramble plays, and so that was
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  Speaker 2: obviously like a trade off Ohio State was willing to make,
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  Speaker 2: at least against Tennessee. Like as I said, like they
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  Speaker 2: definitely wanted to take away the vertical routes. They were
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  Speaker 2: not going to let those you know, receivers get past
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  Speaker 2: them downfield, force them to break off those routes and
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  Speaker 2: become like hitches and curls and uh, you know box
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  Speaker 2: everything or you know, spill everything outside and they take
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  Speaker 2: a few scrambles from him.
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  Speaker 3: You know, he had some nice runs.
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  Speaker 2: Give him credit for that, but like as I said,
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  Speaker 2: it's just you know, I was like, at the end
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  Speaker 2: of the first half of like are they really going
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  Speaker 2: to be able to run their quarterback thirty times in
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  Speaker 2: this game. I mean, that's just that's a lot of
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  Speaker 2: punishment to take.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it felt like an ice bath outside
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  Speaker 1: on Saturday night in the horseshoe, So I guess, you
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  Speaker 1: know it would have I guess that's good for your muscles.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not sure.
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  Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not an.
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  Speaker 1: Exercise physiotherapist or whatever whatever the term is.
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  Speaker 3: But yeah, that was that was one.
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  Speaker 1: That's one of those things where you can only use
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  Speaker 1: this so many times and then it stops working. And
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  Speaker 1: but you know, the scrambles were not the only times
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  Speaker 1: that iam Aliyava got hit because this next one we're
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  Speaker 1: going back to with three high coverage, and this is
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  Speaker 1: one where there's coverage and there's no one open and
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  Speaker 1: the pass rush gets there.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I'd say the big change we saw against Tennessee was
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  Speaker 2: the variety out of the three high looks. Mostly this
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  Speaker 2: year it's been at you know, Tampa two. As we
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  Speaker 2: talked about, we're downs, it's that middle pole runner. But
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  Speaker 2: we saw quite a bit of coverage variety even from
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  Speaker 2: the three high pre step look and so one in particular,
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  Speaker 2: a lot of cover three right and so you present
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  Speaker 2: the three high safeties, but then downs drops back as
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  Speaker 2: like the deep middle of the field, the corners take
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  Speaker 2: their thirds, and it's like a double buzz concept where
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  Speaker 2: both Lathan Ransom and Jordan Hancock as the outside safeties
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  Speaker 2: come down and play that like hook gurl zone. Right,
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  Speaker 2: So this is just Cover three. It's probably more I say,
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  Speaker 2: probably more Cover three on Saturday than they've run all year.
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  Speaker 2: And obviously, like you know again, so that's that sort
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  Speaker 2: of caps those routes. Nico doesn't really you know, there's
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  Speaker 2: nothing much there creates a coverage sack and I think
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  Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't just Cover three though, like we
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  Speaker 2: saw a little bit of Cover one sprinkled in from
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  Speaker 2: this three high.
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  Speaker 3: Look they ran some Cover four concepts or you.
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  Speaker 2: Know, they're again like playing four across or even like
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  Speaker 2: that we talked about against Indiana.
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  Speaker 3: I saw a little bit of you know, cone and.
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  Speaker 2: Bracketing where you're sort of double teaming or you know,
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  Speaker 2: guy could take inside, the safety takes them outside, the
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  Speaker 2: corner takes them and so you know, just again a
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  Speaker 2: lot of variety from like sort of the same three
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  Speaker 2: high pre Snapshell talked about how Georgia did that successfully
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  Speaker 2: against Tennessee. I would expect going forward, like again, quite
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  Speaker 2: a bit of this against Oregon in contrast to the
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  Speaker 2: last game plan. But you know, quite a bit of
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  Speaker 2: three high, quite a bit of those cover four concepts
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  Speaker 2: that us against Indiana.
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  Speaker 1: All right, and we're going to give one more three
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  Speaker 1: high look for you. This one is if you're listening
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: and you're not watching, this is the play where Davis
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  Speaker 1: Igmnosen broke the pass up and then celebrated for about
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: forty seven seconds after the PBu just to to be
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  Speaker 1: able to place this in your mind in terms of
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  Speaker 1: which play we're talking about here.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you want to imagine what it's like watching
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Live with me, and that was the please don't get
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: a fifteen yard personal foul right here, Please don't get
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: a fifteen yard personal foul. So again, like as I say,
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  Speaker 2: variety in the in the three high looks and that
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  Speaker 2: it just makes it really difficult, especially like on a
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  Speaker 2: young quarterback in terms of what he's seen. You know,
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  Speaker 2: Ohio State brought very little pressure on Saturday. This was
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  Speaker 2: one of the few times, right, this is a hot concept, right,
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  Speaker 2: So it's like three deep.
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  Speaker 3: So again from three.
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  Speaker 2: I another Cover three, but you're only having two underneath
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  Speaker 2: defenders in the seams and then the two linebackers you're
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  Speaker 2: bringing a double a gap blitz. And like we talked
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  Speaker 2: about how Georgia ran this a lot against Tennessee as well,
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  Speaker 2: because just again the type of routes the Tennessee runs,
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  Speaker 2: like you, yes, you're leaving a lot of that underneath
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  Speaker 2: zones open, but it's like so much of that, like
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  Speaker 2: either comeback routes or dig routes, that you just don't
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  Speaker 2: have to worry about defending the whole field at times.
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  Speaker 2: And so that's exactly what you get here, Like you get,
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  Speaker 2: you know, a bunch of comeback routes that you've got
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  Speaker 2: defenders for and you're able to force that throw. Like
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  Speaker 2: Ohio State was definitely getting depth with their corners. Like
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  Speaker 2: even in Cover two, they'll sync back unless there's a
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  Speaker 2: flat threat to keep the route calf but they're really
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  Speaker 2: breaking on the ball once that hitch came, like you
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  Speaker 2: had this one from Big Binos and there was a
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  Speaker 2: one later in the game where Jermaine Matthews drove on
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  Speaker 2: the ball and had a really nice play.
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  Speaker 3: And so they're just able to cover a lot of ground.
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  Speaker 2: But yeah, so you know, as I said, very little
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  Speaker 2: pressure in terms of like adding rushers in this game.
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  Speaker 2: You know, there's a couple of times ran cover zero
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  Speaker 2: on the Kenyana.
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  Speaker 3: Jackson, you know, questionable personal foul.
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  Speaker 2: They ran cover zero on the big Latham Ransom stop
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  Speaker 2: on that speed option.
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  Speaker 3: You could actually see like.
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  Speaker 2: Nico check to that because it was cover zero, like
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  Speaker 2: speed option is in theory a good play against that.
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  Speaker 2: But Ransom made a great play and came up and
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  Speaker 2: made the stop.
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  Speaker 3: So I do think.
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  Speaker 2: By contrast against Oregon, you will see more of the
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Indiana game plan on third downs and long where they're
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  Speaker 2: upping the pressure. Particularly again depends on how well they're
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: doing with the front four, but I do think they're
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  Speaker 2: going to want to try to move gave her off
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  Speaker 2: his spot more than they did on Saturday and make
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  Speaker 2: him uncomfortable. But you just have so much more variety
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  Speaker 2: in what they do now compared to that game, Like
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  Speaker 2: it's it's pretty incredible looking back at it, you know,
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  Speaker 2: as opposed to against Oregon, where you know, you go
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  Speaker 2: back and look at the clips we talked about where
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Oregon was able to use motion and RPOs like pull
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  Speaker 2: you know, in tier run defenders out of a gap
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  Speaker 2: and have that unaccounted for, or you know, knew they
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  Speaker 2: were getting Cover one and could scheme it up. Like
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  Speaker 2: now you're getting these like a ton of these three
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  Speaker 2: high looks. You're mixing in cover two, Cover three, cover four,
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  Speaker 2: and you're just you're really making things a lot more
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  Speaker 2: difficult on a quarterback in terms of what they're seeing
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  Speaker 2: and just giving yourself more tools in the toolkit where
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: you can spread out and account for the reliefs. But
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  Speaker 2: now you can spike the defensive ends inside and spill
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  Speaker 2: the football outside as opposed to just having these open
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  Speaker 2: you know, B and C gaps.
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  Speaker 3: Well, there you go.
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  Speaker 1: They look the last of the look back at the
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Tennessee and a little bit of a little a look
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: ahead at this week's bowl game against Oregon. Really looking
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: forward to that one. We're going to try and have
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Ross on again before that game happens, to take maybe
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a deeper dive on the specifics
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: of both offense and defense against the Ducks. Try and
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: get that for you. It's going to be a wild
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: week in terms of travel and schedules and all that
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff, but we'll do again to make that happen.
• 14:18
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