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Ohio State Scheme Insider: What Went Wrong For The Buckeyes' Defense At USC? · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Thursday, November 5th. I'm
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Speaker 1: your host, Tom Moore. The Oregon game in two days,
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Speaker 1: the game against Michigan in 23 days. Today's episode presented
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Speaker 2: All right, on today's show, we're going to welcome in
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Speaker 2: Michael Pettit.
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Speaker 1: He's one of our scheme insiders specializing on the defensive
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Speaker 1: side of the ball. We're looking at the Ohio State
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Speaker 1: defense and their performance today. Against USC. And man, that
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Speaker 1: was really a mixed bag because.
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Speaker 2: For long chunks of that, it was like, all right,
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Speaker 2: not too bad.
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Speaker 1: And then you give a couple of huge plays and
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Speaker 1: all of a sudden you're giving up 30 points. So
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Speaker 1: we're going to, what are we going to try to
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Speaker 1: make of all that? We're going to try and sort
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Speaker 1: that out for you. And Michael, we're going to start
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Speaker 1: with a coverage concept. A lot of these we've seen
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Speaker 1: before and they've been executed well or not well before.
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Speaker 1: So we're going to be looking at how they did
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Speaker 1: it with, with familiar concepts that we're going to start
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Speaker 1: with one. It's a new one as far as I
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Speaker 1: can remember. Cover 3 Cloud.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. The first few plays we talk about here, I
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Speaker 2: kind of just want to talk neutrally about some scheme stuff,
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Speaker 2: just some little observations because I always want these videos
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Speaker 2: to have some of that element and not just be
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Speaker 2: a bunch of criticism or a bunch of praise. The
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Speaker 2: defensive performance was kind of weird, and I know a
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Speaker 2: lot of people probably don't want to hear this, but
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Speaker 2: I thought it was absolutely awful watching live. And then
1:28
Speaker 2: on a rewatch, I was like, okay, it wasn't like
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Speaker 2: as a whole, the performance was not terrible. Like it
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Speaker 2: wasn't good, but it was, it was okay. They, but
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Speaker 2: they gave up, you know, two explosive plays, the third
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Speaker 2: and 18 debacle where they should have called a timeout.
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Speaker 2: And then, you know, there's some sporadic tackling issues throughout
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Speaker 2: the day, but like, Considering USC is a talented offense,
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Speaker 2: you were never going to hold them to 150 yards
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Speaker 2: or anything like that. I think the defense was fine.
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Speaker 2: I want to just talk neutrally about a few plays first.
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Speaker 2: Don't worry, we will move into some criticisms of what's
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Speaker 2: going on in defense after that. As Tom said, this
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Speaker 2: first play is cover three cloud. I want to talk
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Speaker 2: about this because this is the first time I've seen
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Speaker 2: Patricia call this. He called it a couple of times
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Speaker 2: on Saturday. Cover three cloud, like any cover three concept,
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Speaker 2: is a zone defense where you've got four underneath defenders
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Speaker 2: and three deep defenders responsible for the deep thirds of
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Speaker 2: the field. What makes this different than your typical cover
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Speaker 2: three or cover three buzz is on most cover threes,
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Speaker 2: the two corners are responsible for the outside thirds of
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Speaker 2: the field and then one safety for the middle third.
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Speaker 2: On cover three cloud, though, One of the corners actually
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Speaker 2: stays down as a curl flat defender. You can call
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Speaker 2: them the cloud corner. And then a safety will rotate
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Speaker 2: over to that deep third. In this case, it's the
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Speaker 2: deep third to the boundary that you're having a safety
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Speaker 2: roll to. The field safety is going to roll to
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Speaker 2: the middle deep third. And then your field corner back
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Speaker 2: to the bottom of the screen is going to roll
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Speaker 2: to the other deep third to the field. Yeah, this
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Speaker 2: is just a different style of cover three than what
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Speaker 2: we're used to seeing. I'm not really sure why Patricia
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Speaker 2: wanted to incorporate this on Saturday, but it was just
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Speaker 2: an observation, something new. All right.
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Speaker 1: Next up, we're going to see a concept we definitely
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Speaker 1: have seen before, Cover 3 Buzz, and then something we've
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Speaker 1: talked about, you and I, a bunch on these shows, Creepers.
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Speaker 1: We know you love the Creepers and Sim Pressures, so
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Speaker 1: let's get to Cover 3.
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Speaker 2: Buzz with some Creepers. Yeah, so... we've got a three
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Speaker 2: buzz creeper here. So cover three buzz again, it's a
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Speaker 2: cover three concept. So you've got three, uh, deep third defenders,
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Speaker 2: four underneath defenders, because the creeper, as we, as we know,
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Speaker 2: we're bringing it back seven defender. In this case, it's
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Speaker 2: going to be that, uh, we'll line back or to
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Speaker 2: the boundary. He's blitzing the a gap, reading the center
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Speaker 2: to decide which a gap insert, but you're going to
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Speaker 2: drop a defensive end and coverage in place of them.
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Speaker 2: So it's still just a four man rush. That's what
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Speaker 2: a creeper is. Um, And what makes this cover three
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Speaker 2: buzz is when you have a safety who's buzzing down
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Speaker 2: into one of the hook zones, which here is what
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Speaker 2: the boundary safety does, that's cover three buzz. So you've
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Speaker 2: got the boundary defensive end standing up. He's going to
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Speaker 2: be your curl flat player to the boundary. The boundary
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Speaker 2: safety will be the hook player to the boundary. Peyton Pierce,
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Speaker 2: your Mike linebacker, he's going to be the hook player
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Speaker 2: to the field. The nickel is going to be the
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Speaker 2: curl flat player to the field. And then you've got
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Speaker 2: your two corners. and field safety as the deep third defender. So,
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Speaker 2: you know, I like creepers a lot because, uh, you
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Speaker 2: can run them kind of on any down, like a
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Speaker 2: lot of, it's very common to call creepers on like
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Speaker 2: first and 10 or second and six, you know, more
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Speaker 2: neutral downs like that because, uh, they often are very
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Speaker 2: good against, um, against runs in particular against zone runs. So, yeah,
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Speaker 2: I mean, just, uh, nice to see that these are
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Speaker 2: part of the scheme and, you know, definitely something to
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Speaker 2: help with changing the picture post snap.
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Speaker 1: Next up, this is a concept we talked about on
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Speaker 1: last week's show and it was successful then a line
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Speaker 1: reduction and it is successful here again against USC. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: I wanted to talk about this again because like, I
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Speaker 2: know people were probably sick of hearing this talking point
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Speaker 2: at this point, but you know, Indiana, the stunts, the movements,
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Speaker 2: the twists up front, like that's how they create havoc. Um,
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Speaker 2: The fact of the matter is stunts and movement, it's
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Speaker 2: almost like they literally always work, essentially. I know Ohio
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Speaker 2: State's offensive line gets a lot of criticism for not
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Speaker 2: picking up stunts well, but I don't see really any
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Speaker 2: offensive line that does. Here, again, you've got a line reduction,
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Speaker 2: which as I discussed on the last video, a line
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Speaker 2: reduction is when you're using movement to get from one
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Speaker 2: type of spacing in the pre-snap to a different type
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Speaker 2: of spacing in the post-snap. So here they're an odd
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Speaker 2: spacing pre-snap. What makes it odd spacing is that you've
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Speaker 2: got defensive tackles in each of the B gaps in
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Speaker 2: those four eye techniques inside shoulder of the offensive tackles.
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Speaker 2: When the B gaps are closed like that with defensive tackles,
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Speaker 2: that's odd spacing. And then of course, you've got your
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Speaker 2: zero tech nose head up over the center. They're all
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Speaker 2: going to slant towards the running back here, which will
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Speaker 2: create even spacing post-snap. Even spacing is when one of
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Speaker 2: the B gaps is open. So like Kenyatta Jackson here,
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Speaker 2: he's the defensive tackle who's on the right side of
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Speaker 2: the screen. And he's going to spike over to the
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Speaker 2: C gap outside of USC's right tackle. And this is
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Speaker 2: a huge play also because this was a third and
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Speaker 2: two and USC tries to run inside zone to get
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Speaker 2: the first down. This line reduction, you'll see Kenyatta Jackson,
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Speaker 2: Edrick Houston get into the backfield for a really massive
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Speaker 2: tackle for loss here to force a punt. This was
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Speaker 2: just an example. The defense did force a fair amount
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Speaker 2: of punts and obviously even forced USC to kick a
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Speaker 2: ridiculously long field goal. The defense had success here and there.
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Speaker 2: It wasn't like it was all bad, just some strange
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Speaker 2: decisions and a couple of explosives, which we're going to
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Speaker 2: cover one of those explosives here later on.
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Speaker 1: We'll get to that in a little bit, but next
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Speaker 1: we're going to get to something that I know has
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Speaker 1: been something you've been harping on a little bit. Some
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Speaker 1: weird run fits, and this one they're going up against
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Speaker 1: a counter play, and again, there's just some kind of
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Speaker 1: weird fits here that ends up leading to a huge run,
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Speaker 1: but substantial run.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, this was not a devastating play. It was about
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Speaker 2: a six-yard gain, so not ideal, of course, either, but
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Speaker 2: So USC, Lincoln Riley, the book on him since his
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Speaker 2: Oklahoma days, he loves to run counter in the run game.
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Speaker 2: You know, he's a very gap scheme heavy guy. So
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Speaker 2: here he's running G-Y counter, which as we've discussed before,
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Speaker 2: that's when the guard, the G and the tight end,
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Speaker 2: who we call the Y, are the two pullers on
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Speaker 2: a gap scheme run. And that guard, his job on
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Speaker 2: this is to kick that defensive end out. That's Kenyatta
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Speaker 2: Jackson in this case. So, but when you defend counter,
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Speaker 2: when you defend any of these plays like this, you know,
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Speaker 2: gap plays, when you've got a pulling lineman coming at you,
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Speaker 2: there's two ways you can defend it. You can either
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Speaker 2: box it, which means you're attacking the outside shoulder to
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Speaker 2: force the ball back inside, or you can spill it,
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Speaker 2: which means you're going to attack that guard's inside shoulder
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Speaker 2: to force the ball carrier to bounce outside.
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Speaker 1: All right.
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Speaker 2: Like the conventional wisdom on counter has often been that
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Speaker 2: spilling the first polar is the best way to defend counter.
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Speaker 2: That's not what Ohio State does here. And they often
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Speaker 2: what they don't do against counter. And I don't know why.
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Speaker 2: I mean, we've seen this before. Like, I don't think
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Speaker 2: this is Kenyatta Jackson making a mistake. I believe this
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Speaker 2: is what their coach to do. But, you know, like
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Speaker 2: if you look at this play, particularly from the wide view,
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Speaker 2: it's kind of a good view at, when you attack
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Speaker 2: that guard's outside shoulder, it really just creates a giant
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Speaker 2: lane for the tight end to then come through and
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Speaker 2: easily climb up to the linebacker. But if you're attacking
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Speaker 2: the inside shoulder, you're closing that lane down. The tight
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Speaker 2: end then has to hesitate and go around that block
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Speaker 2: and it just kind of muddies everything up back there
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Speaker 2: and slows everything down and allows the linebackers and safety
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Speaker 2: to flow over the top. So like, yeah, I mean,
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Speaker 2: I just, I don't know why they're boxing on counter
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Speaker 2: i really think that spilling counter is the better way
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Speaker 2: to defend it that's um i've seen you know a
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Speaker 2: lot of uh coaches and stuff and people like that
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Speaker 2: who have said the same thing So, yeah, this is
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Speaker 2: just one of those like weird problems schematically that's existed
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Speaker 2: for a while that I don't really know why it's happening.
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Speaker 2: I mean, I wish I had a better answer, but
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Speaker 2: I just don't. So this is a problem that I
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Speaker 2: hope gets fixed soon, because if I were an offensive
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Speaker 2: coordinator playing in Ohio State, I would run counter every
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Speaker 2: time I ran the ball.
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Speaker 1: Next up, we're going to be looking at a going
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Speaker 1: from the run to the pass game. And this is
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Speaker 1: a fire zone. And this is one where, before we
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Speaker 1: hit record on this, we were talking and I said,
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Speaker 1: you know, man, it feels like they're dropping Kenyatta Jackson
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Speaker 1: into coverage a ton. And I don't know how often
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Speaker 1: that's really happening. This play is an example of where
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Speaker 1: it happens. And I know you want to disguise coverages,
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Speaker 1: but you wonder, you're also kind of putting guys in
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Speaker 1: a position where they're not necessarily doing what they're best at.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this is a fire zone. We've talked
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Speaker 2: about a fire zone before as well. It's a five-man
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Speaker 2: zone pressure where you've got your three deep defenders and
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Speaker 2: then you've got your three underneath zone defenders. So what's
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Speaker 2: the problem here? We're supposed to be happy that they're
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Speaker 2: running fire zones and mixing things up. Well, the problem is,
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Speaker 2: look where Kenyatta Jackson is. USC is an 11 personnel.
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Speaker 2: They've got a tight end of the boundary, three receivers
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Speaker 2: to the field. And Kenyatta Jackson, your 6'5, 265-pound, strong
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Speaker 2: side defensive end, who sometimes even plays defensive tackle, is
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Speaker 2: flexed out to the field as a cover down player
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Speaker 2: over receivers. That is just extremely strange structure to me.
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Speaker 2: I mean, usually in general, when Kenyatta Jackson's playing defensive end,
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Speaker 2: he's kind of playing like a traditional Jack linebacker position,
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Speaker 2: which is to the boundary. So I don't even know
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Speaker 2: why he's to the field.
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Speaker 1: But....
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Speaker 2: As Tom said, this is the one drawback with creepers
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Speaker 2: that I've talked about before. When you drop defensive linemen
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Speaker 2: into coverage, you are dropping someone who's not quite as
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Speaker 2: good in a coverage situation like that. This is especially
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Speaker 2: bizarre to me just because of where Kenyatta Jackson has
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Speaker 2: lined up pre-snap. I don't understand how you land on
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Speaker 2: any sort of defensive structure that has Kenyatta Jackson playing
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Speaker 2: to the field as a cover down player over wide receivers.
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Speaker 2: It is, it's very strange. I don't think this is
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Speaker 2: in any way setting your defense up for success. All right,
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Speaker 2: next up.
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Speaker 1: This is another one that I know we've talked about
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Speaker 1: before to roll. And this is a blitz look that
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Speaker 1: they showed against a, a run.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. So normally I would love a two row blitz.
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Speaker 2: If it were third and eight, I would love this
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Speaker 2: play call. Uh, The problem here is this is second
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Speaker 2: and eight. This is like a really big pet peeve
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Speaker 2: of mine. So they're in a blitz formation, like a
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Speaker 2: pressure look here. I'm not talking about the play call.
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Speaker 2: I'm talking about, you know, they've got the two linebackers
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Speaker 2: mugged up in the A gaps. So you've got six
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Speaker 2: men on the line of scrimmage. And I really can't
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Speaker 2: stand when defensive coordinators do this stuff, like mug their
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Speaker 2: linebackers on standard downs, like second and eight work. either
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Speaker 2: a run or a pass is very possible because as
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Speaker 2: a linebacker, it is really hard to defend the run
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Speaker 2: from that position. So the call here is a two-roll blitz,
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Speaker 2: which again, so two-roll, you kind of start out with
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Speaker 2: one single high safety. When the ball is snapped, he's
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Speaker 2: going to bail to one of the deep halves. So
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Speaker 2: that high safety bails to the deep half to the field.
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Speaker 2: Then your corner is going to roll back to the
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Speaker 2: other deep half. So the boundary corner here rolls to
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Speaker 2: the boundary's deep half. And it's a five man pressure.
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Speaker 2: You're bringing the nickel. So you've got your four underneath defenders,
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Speaker 2: but like, again, this was not a disastrous play because
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Speaker 2: it was like a six yard gain instead of a
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Speaker 2: 20 yard gain. But I just find this to be
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Speaker 2: a very strange play call on second and eight. Like
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Speaker 2: this really reeks to me of doing something just for
14:18
Speaker 2: the sake of doing. If you want to call this
14:20
Speaker 2: on third and seven, I would be thrilled. I wouldn't,
14:24
Speaker 2: if you call this on third and seven, I would
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Speaker 2: not even care if the offense converted, like, Obviously, I would.
14:29
Speaker 2: But you know what I mean. It's a reasonable play
14:31
Speaker 2: call in that situation. Whereas, I don't know. There's just
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Speaker 2: a lot of very strange choices happening on defense still.
14:40
Speaker 2: I've had questions about it all year. After the Indiana game,
14:45
Speaker 2: I felt like I had a little bit more of
14:47
Speaker 2: a grasp on the scheme. And I don't know. I
14:51
Speaker 2: just feel like there's a lot of doing stuff just
14:52
Speaker 2: for the sake of doing it. And this is a
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Speaker 2: perfect example of that.
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Speaker 1: Well, and this next play is kind of a different
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Speaker 1: example of that, where it's a look that we haven't
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Speaker 1: seen before, and it's the last play we're talking about.
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Speaker 1: And they're dropping eight, which is one of those things,
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Speaker 1: you drop eight, it's like, well, that's the way you
15:08
Speaker 1: make sure you don't give up a big play. Now,
15:11
Speaker 1: keen-eared listeners will note that Michael has promised that we're
15:14
Speaker 1: going to have a big play on this show, and
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Speaker 1: this is the last play. So they're dropping eight, and
15:18
Speaker 1: they're giving up a big play.
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Speaker 2: What went wrong here? Yeah, so this is just another
15:23
Speaker 2: very weird choice from a play calling structure perspective so
15:28
Speaker 2: mind you this is first down it was it was
15:30
Speaker 2: first and 15 but it's first down that you know
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Speaker 2: um what they do here is usc is in a
15:38
Speaker 2: two tight end set as you can see ohio state
15:41
Speaker 2: rolls out a package we have not seen once this
15:44
Speaker 2: year it's a three three personnel look you know ohio
15:48
Speaker 2: state's usually either in like a four two or as
15:51
Speaker 2: personnel wise they're in a four two or you know,
15:53
Speaker 2: a 4-3 sometimes against bigger personnel. But here they go 3-3. And, like,
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Speaker 2: if that's not weird enough, they don't even have a
16:02
Speaker 2: nose tackle on the field. Like, that's Edrick Houston playing
16:05
Speaker 2: nose over the center. And they've got Kenyatta Jackson and
16:08
Speaker 2: Quay Rousaw at edge. And then they've got three linebackers.
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Speaker 2: They've got Pettijohn as the will linebacker down to the boundary.
16:19
Speaker 2: Christian Allegro is kind of like your Mike. in the middle.
16:26
Speaker 2: Peyton Pierce is almost more like a Sam linebacker in
16:28
Speaker 2: this case. He's a little more to the field. Again,
16:31
Speaker 2: we've never seen this set before. It just seemed like
16:35
Speaker 2: doing something just for the sake of doing it. To
16:38
Speaker 2: make matters worse, they didn't even do anything cool with it.
16:43
Speaker 2: You see this and you're kind of expecting, okay, there
16:45
Speaker 2: might be some sort of blitz or something. Are they
16:47
Speaker 2: going to let Riley Pettijohn rush the passer here? But No,
16:51
Speaker 2: it's a drop eight Tampa two. So you've got your
16:54
Speaker 2: safeties failing to the deep halves of the field. And
16:57
Speaker 2: then you've got, you know, the corners and the flats, um,
17:01
Speaker 2: Pettijohn and the nickel are kind of seam defenders. Allegro
17:06
Speaker 2: is your low hole defender. And Peyton Pierce is your
17:09
Speaker 2: high hole pole runner defender, which also is kind of strange, but, um, like,
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Speaker 2: I don't know that I, I think this is just
17:16
Speaker 2: a very strange personnel choice in this situation. Um, I
17:20
Speaker 2: don't think this is a great rep from Allegro either.
17:22
Speaker 2: Like I don't, I just don't believe that no one
17:25
Speaker 2: is tasked with carrying Mark Bowman's route a little more.
17:29
Speaker 2: And then obviously like the end of this play is
17:32
Speaker 2: really ugly. I mean, guys were trying to strip the
17:35
Speaker 2: ball instead of make the tackle, which is one of
17:37
Speaker 2: those things. It's like, you know, if it works, it's great.
17:40
Speaker 2: If it doesn't, it's awful. I personally just am always
17:44
Speaker 2: the type of person who prefers to just make the
17:46
Speaker 2: tackle rather than take the risk of trying to strip.
17:49
Speaker 2: But like, And I'm not just saying that because it
17:51
Speaker 2: didn't work here. Like, that's just my philosophy. But again,
17:55
Speaker 2: this is a very strange choice. And I just feel
17:58
Speaker 2: like we're seeing that. We've seen that a lot this year.
18:01
Speaker 2: And I don't I just don't remember ever feeling this
18:05
Speaker 2: way after watching the film last year. Like last year,
18:08
Speaker 2: there was like little things like, oh, I wish Patricia
18:10
Speaker 2: would be a touch more aggressive or like. I feel
18:13
Speaker 2: like he's leaning a little too much on cover three
18:15
Speaker 2: at time, but there wasn't just weird structural choices and
18:19
Speaker 2: weird personnel choices, and I never got the sense that
18:23
Speaker 2: he was doing things just to do them. And I
18:26
Speaker 2: don't know. I feel like after every... you know, subpar
18:34
Speaker 2: defensive performance this year or less than good defensive performance
18:37
Speaker 2: this year, all the players kind of come out and
18:39
Speaker 2: take blame, take ownership. And that's very commendable, but I don't,
18:44
Speaker 2: I just don't always feel like they're really put in
18:46
Speaker 2: the best positions. Like I don't think the players should
18:49
Speaker 2: be taking, I don't know what's going on internally, of course,
18:51
Speaker 2: but I'm just saying, I don't, I don't know that
18:54
Speaker 2: the players should even be taking as much blame as
18:57
Speaker 2: they are. I don't, I don't, the, the, the scheme
19:00
Speaker 2: and the structure, this is, a little unusual to me.
19:03
Speaker 2: I don't know what else to say, but yeah, between
19:05
Speaker 2: this play with Mark Bowman and then, uh, you know,
19:09
Speaker 2: the other two plays that I consider the true daggers
19:13
Speaker 2: in this game, we're obviously the second play of the game, which, um,
19:17
Speaker 2: I believe we, um, at Buckeye insiders, we'll be talking
19:20
Speaker 2: about in a later video this week. And then also, uh,
19:24
Speaker 2: you know, we, Ohio state got USC into a third
19:27
Speaker 2: and 18 and, uh, It was very apparent that Ohio
19:31
Speaker 2: State's defense did not have the call. Everyone on TV
19:35
Speaker 2: was watching it. I remember watching it thinking, okay, let's
19:38
Speaker 2: call a timeout here. Let's not risk anything. USC was
19:41
Speaker 2: content to just run the ball and punt or hope
19:44
Speaker 2: something broke out and punt if not, but they didn't
19:48
Speaker 2: call a timeout. The players weren't aligned. They obviously didn't
19:51
Speaker 2: have the call or whatever. And no timeout was called.
19:54
Speaker 2: And USC pops off a 20, 20 yard run on
19:58
Speaker 2: third and 18, like those types of things you just
20:02
Speaker 2: can't have happen. And again, they were in kind of
20:06
Speaker 2: like a blitz formation. And that's kind of what I
20:08
Speaker 2: was saying earlier. We're like, I don't, now look being
20:11
Speaker 2: in a blitz formation on third and 18 is fine
20:14
Speaker 2: but like it is hard to defend the run out
20:16
Speaker 2: of those formations and obviously they didn't have the call
20:18
Speaker 2: so it's a little different but it kind of goes
20:20
Speaker 2: to what i was saying earlier which is that like
20:22
Speaker 2: on second and eight being in like a blitz formation
20:25
Speaker 2: with both your linebackers mugged up on the line of
20:27
Speaker 2: sternages is very strange so yeah just a lot of
20:31
Speaker 2: uh interesting things to say the least but You know,
20:36
Speaker 2: weirdly enough, like it wasn't all bad from the defense.
20:40
Speaker 2: I just there's just some certain structural things that I
20:43
Speaker 2: feel like have just lingered on and on all year.
20:46
Speaker 1: So moving forward, we know now as of Tuesday night
20:50
Speaker 1: that the Buckeyes are almost certainly in a you need
20:53
Speaker 1: to win the rest of your games kind of situation
20:55
Speaker 1: if they want to make the college football playoffs. So
20:58
Speaker 1: the offense, you figure the offense should be better in
21:02
Speaker 1: some ways. You figure they should put a few more
21:04
Speaker 1: points on the board. you would think in some of
21:06
Speaker 1: these games but the defense it feels like that's where
21:08
Speaker 1: there's really an area for up you know an opportunity
21:11
Speaker 1: for improvement against some of these upcoming teams and you're
21:14
Speaker 1: going to get challenged by Oregon you're probably going to
21:16
Speaker 1: get challenged in a very different way by Chip Kelly
21:18
Speaker 1: who is doing all sorts of crazy stuff this year
21:21
Speaker 1: is this a defense that you think can rebound from
21:27
Speaker 1: generally when you see it Ohio State defense or an
21:29
Speaker 1: Ohio State team have like an uncharacteristically bad performance, they
21:33
Speaker 1: tend to rebound pretty well the next week. Are you
21:36
Speaker 1: expecting them to be able to sort of get things
21:38
Speaker 1: turned around and, and put together a much better performance
21:40
Speaker 1: against Oregon this week?
21:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am. I mean, you know, it was, uh,
21:47
Speaker 2: First of all, I don't think long layoffs are good.
21:51
Speaker 2: Ohio State needed that bye because of the injuries and
21:53
Speaker 2: stuff to help get Fahey prepped, but I don't feel
21:56
Speaker 2: like they usually play well after a bye. I feel
21:58
Speaker 2: like a lot of teams don't. So it was a bye.
22:00
Speaker 2: You were three time zones away. But the questions on
22:06
Speaker 2: defense right now, a lot of it also boils down
22:08
Speaker 2: to health. We've now seen that Jay Timmons, whether or
22:13
Speaker 2: not he's available, is a massive... key to this defense
22:18
Speaker 2: which is understandable to some extent um the counterpoint is
22:22
Speaker 2: like as good as he is i don't think that
22:26
Speaker 2: a true freshman who plays the nickel position should be
22:28
Speaker 2: literally the key to whether you're a top three defense
22:31
Speaker 2: or a top 30 defense like um and you know
22:36
Speaker 2: i don't know what edgar houston status is going to
22:38
Speaker 2: be uh i'd still like them to incorporate some more
22:42
Speaker 2: line movement up front like the reductions and the stunts
22:45
Speaker 2: and stuff like that And then, you know, I think
22:49
Speaker 2: kind of in some ways just getting back to basics and, like,
22:53
Speaker 2: just making sure the structure makes sense. Like, no doing
22:56
Speaker 2: things just for the sake of doing them. And, you know, just,
23:00
Speaker 2: you know, players just need to be put in a
23:02
Speaker 2: position where they're set up to succeed. I mean, I
23:04
Speaker 2: think the defense is talented. Like, if you want me
23:07
Speaker 2: to talk about some of the good I saw on Saturday, like,
23:11
Speaker 2: I actually thought the corners played very well. And... at
23:15
Speaker 2: times this year, I think the fan base has been
23:17
Speaker 2: pretty concerned about the corners. They played well and USC
23:21
Speaker 2: has got good receivers. I thought, you know, I still
23:29
Speaker 2: think we're seeing some good play from the defensive tackles
23:32
Speaker 2: like Edgar Houston and Kenyatta Jackson when they use them
23:36
Speaker 2: as the four eye technique and as a defensive tackle.
23:39
Speaker 2: The defense is, is, is solid. Like they have the
23:43
Speaker 2: potential to be solid. I just think there's stuff that
23:45
Speaker 2: needs to be cleaned up. And I feel like it's
23:48
Speaker 2: too late in the season to still be using the,
23:51
Speaker 2: like any excuses that Patricia is like figuring out the
23:54
Speaker 2: personnel and stuff like that. I just, I think that,
23:56
Speaker 2: I think there needs to be some stuff that's settled on.
23:58
Speaker 2: And for some reason it just still appears to be
24:00
Speaker 2: not settled on. All right.
24:03
Speaker 1: Well, we will be watching that and talking about that
24:06
Speaker 1: all week long at Buckeye insiders.com. We got our whole
24:09
Speaker 1: team of scheme insiders there. answering your questions, talking about
24:13
Speaker 1: what they're seeing and helping you understand what you're seeing.
24:16
Speaker 1: That is one of the great benefits of being a
24:18
Speaker 1: member at Buckeye insiders.com. Get access to all of that
24:21
Speaker 1: and more on our insiders board. Also, you want to
24:24
Speaker 1: talk to those guys. You want to talk to some
24:26
Speaker 1: of us as well. We've got a member only tailgate
24:29
Speaker 1: coming up this Saturday before the Oregon game. A whole
24:32
Speaker 1: bunch of our staff will be there. We would love
24:35
Speaker 1: to see you there as well. If you want to
24:37
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24:38
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24:41
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24:42
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24:47
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24:49
Speaker 2: Great information we got there.
24:50
Speaker 1: Plus get access to all of our fun Member Appreciation
24:54
Speaker 1: Month events. We got the tailgate coming up this week.
24:57
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25:00
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25:03
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25:06
Speaker 2: That'll do it for today.
25:07
Speaker 1: Thank you guys all for joining us.
25:08
Speaker 2: Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.