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Ross Fulton Analysis: How Ohio State Is Adjusting To Life Without Lathan Ransom · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Friday, November seventeenth. I'm your host,
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  tom Or. The Minnesota game is tomorrow, the game against Michigan in eight
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  days. Today we're talking to our buddy, Ross Fulton, the ex's and
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  o's guru at bucke Huddle dot com. And when we talked to Ross,
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  we're talking about Jeff Ruby Steakhouse. They sponsor all of Ross's segments here,
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  the award winning upscale steakhouse in downtown Columbus named one of the top fifty steakhouses
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  in America. Buy Food Network. Visit Jeffruby dot com slash Columbus to learn
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  more, check out the menu and make a reservation. Today. All right,
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  Ross, we're gonna be talking about Ohio State being a little shorthanded on
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  defense last week and a lot of those injuries sound like there may be not
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  long term, but laythan ransom, that bandit boundary safety spot that might be
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  a little bit more of a concern for Ohio State. We're gonna be talking
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  a little bit about how the absence of ransom maybe change of things. In
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  some times Ohio State handled that well and sometimes Ohio State maybe did not handle
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  that well, last week against Michigan State, let's start with one of There
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  weren't that many big plays that they gave up, but one of them was
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  right in the first quarter, about halfway through the first quarter, long run.
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  What happened here? Yeah, I mean I think you saw the cumulative
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  effect of people being out, you know, not just Ransom but also Josh
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  Proctor and Tommy Eikenberg, and so that came in a couple of ways.
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  I thought that they were pretty basic in what they were doing. Like on
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  this play, they are just running a basic Cover three spun down to the
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  field, and like they just haven't been a very Cover three heavy team this
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  year, but we saw like especially just like Cover three sky like your base
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  Cover three, but I saw a lot of it against Michigan State. My
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  guess is probably, you know, more so than anything to Michigan State did
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  that they decided to play Cover three just lack of you know, you're missing
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  your your MIC and your two starting safeties, so probably trying to keep things
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  pretty pretty simple, and you know, so it gets them on this play
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  too, and then you notice the lack of so they're you know, they're
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  running Cover three spun down to the trips for Michigan State, and Michigan State
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  runs counter oh h away from that, so we you know, we talked
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  about count ohl offer that state offense here you see for Michigan State. So
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  they're outnumbered already away from the trips and you know again you just like now
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  they got Malie hard for down. You have your two linebackers, you know,
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  Cody Simon playing Mike for the first time this year and meaningful minutes and
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  like you just got to get over the top, like Jack Sawyer spills the
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  football and you just need guys to get you know, whether you're you're reading
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  polers, you know, getting outside and basically they just get out leveraged.
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  And so again, like I do think like we can talk about more,
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  like you know, Lathan Ranson. I think as we've discussed previously, Like
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  I think they could probably survive that. It's certainly not ideal like you would
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  want him because like, but you can put any styles there, but is
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  you know, once you also take away Eikenberg and Proctor and you're down starting
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  you know, a true freshman Lee Cartford at one safety spot, you start
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  getting kind of limited in what you can do well. And I think the
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  good news is that it does not sound like Eikenberg or Proctor are long term
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  concerns. Ryan Day, you know, has a way of telling us probably
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  not a long term thing without saying probably not a long term thing. And
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  it seems like those are probably not long term things. Ransom might be a
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  little bit more of a concern. But you know, they have had other
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  guys picking up the slack, especially in the back end of that defense with
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  some of the guys who are out. One of them is Jordan Hancock.
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  This is the next one. I mean, you talked about Jack Sawyer spilling
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  it outside and no one being there on the last one. Here's one where
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  Jordan Hancock spills one outside and someone is there and the Buckeyes end up picking
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  up a loss of yardage on this play. Yeah, I mean, I
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  think this shows you you know, it's an ARC reed RPO actually and they're
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  read play, I should say, and you know, it just shows how
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  effective Jordan Hancock is as a run defender, which is like a pleasant thing
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  when you have a cornerback playing nickel. He's really aggressive. Yeah, he
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  makes tackles, but he basically takes on the tight end and spills the football
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  outside. You know, the defensive end crashes down, so the quarterback reads
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  that and keeps it. But Hancock spills the tight end and right to Denzel
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  Burke for the tackle. But you know Hancock. Again, this goes back
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  to like the Ransom discussion, Like even before Ransom got hurt later in the
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  Wisconsin game, like they already were playing Hancock full time at Nickel, and
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  part of the reason they could do so is because of how good he is
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  against the run. You know, the Nichols not in the fit a ton
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  already for them, so but he can be very effective doing it. You
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  know, you actually see Styles is probably more impactful at Ransom's boundary safety position
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  than he wasn't Nickel because he's much more in the run fit and Noles can
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  put him in the run fit easier from that position. And so again this
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  goes to like I think, you know, as much as it hurts with
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  Ransom out, and like they haven't been super tested in the passing game,
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  I should say without him, so like that's sort of a question mark of
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  like you know, how Styles and Procter together going to handle, Like those
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  are both big safeties, Like they're really good against the run. And in
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  the box, but you know, you also need the people to play deep.
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  But like, you know, I think that for the most part,
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  you're just like people are like, well, what do you do with styles
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  when you want to play them in nickel, Like they already didn't really want
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  to play him at nickel at least like in their their traditional Nickel concepts,
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  like they wanted to play handcock there. And so I think, you know,
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  when Michigan goes super heavy or even Minnesota, they'll probably I would assume,
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  still assuming tom me Eickenberger is back, I definitely assume he'll be back
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  from Michigan, but like you know, maybe they give him another week.
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  You know, they may go three linebackers when you get like this heavy extra
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  offensive lineman sets. But short of that, I would expect a lot of
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  handcock. And then you know, there's ways, as we've discussed in previous
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  weeks, and it will show here of you know, getting styles or Proctor
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  involved in the run game, like you know we've talked about in the past,
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  like Ohio State's best run defense this year has been like a cover one
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  where Proctor essentially functions as sam linebacker, Like we've shown down the goal line
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  and stuff like that. And so again I think it's like as long as
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  they're comfortable with either of those guys being the deep safety, then there's still
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  tools that Jim Knowles can use. Well, here's one where Sunny Styles was
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  not the deep safety. He was in the backfield. And this is,
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  uh, this is one where you know he has, as you said,
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  he has been getting into the run fit more. When he's at that banded
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  spot, he definitely feels comfortable near the line of scrimmage, and you know,
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  he feels like someone who can bring them a lot of different things from
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  that from that bandit spot without Laith and Ransom in there. Yeah, and
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  I mean again like these are places where he's really comfortable, right, and
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  like we saw Lathan Ransom do this kind of stuff too. But like you
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  know, they bring basically like a week like delayed seagap actually a run blitz,
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  but Michigan State dropped back to pass like we saw this against Rutgers a
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  lot too, and Styles makes the play, so you know they as of
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  prior to the Michigan Penn State game, I would have said my concern was,
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  like, you know, Michigan has kind of become more of a passing
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  team this year after that game, it's a little bit harder to say that,
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  like when they're going seven offensive linemen and running twenty five times in a
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  row. But you know, again like when Roman Wilson is definitely Michigan's best
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  receiver and biggest threat, and so it's you know, that's when Harrick Hancock
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  will really come to play in the slot. But like to the that Michigan
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  is going heavier personnel and multiple tight ends in the box, like both Styles
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  and Proctor are very comfortable playing that essentially like as a Sam linebacker. As
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  I said, so you know that definitely gives them some tools against sort of
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  heavier personal packages. And as I said, like you know, Noles loves
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  this safety blitz as a change up to like always having his defensive ends spill
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  like we shown the last couple of plays, like now you know they come
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  a lot and the safety takes that sea gap and said, so he's doing
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  that some with playing Cover four, or he's doing that some with bringing the
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  safety blitz and Cover one and so you know, again just giving offensives like
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  everything else, like a change up as to what you expect. Well,
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  you mentioned they're Michigan throwing the ball a little more than they did last year.
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  They threw the ball plenty against Ohio State last year hit some very big
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  plays. As I probably do not need to tell this audience, but the
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  last weekend against Michigan State, the Buck guys did a pretty good job defending
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  downfield. Now, the Michigan State offense and the Michigan State quarterback and the
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  Michigan State wide receiver talent not what they will face next week in n Arbor
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  by any means. But still this felt like this was probably, you know,
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  at least a positive indication for Ohio State for what that might look like
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  in an arbor. Yeah, and I you know, I think I grabbed
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  this play because I do think even with the injuries, like you could just
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  continue to see them sort of build on the pass defensive scheme some like I
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  thought they did a nice job. There's a few plays where Michigan State tried
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  to stack the receivers and like Hancock and Dunzel Burke like handled like the different
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  levels. You know, you have to play like one guy up on the
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  one guy bubber on one guy deep and like broke on the ball effectively on
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  those sort of you know, stacked formations. And similarly like here, you
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  know they run Tampa two. But like one difference from what we should against
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  like Notre Dame for instance, is like here they're carrying routes so instead of
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  just spot dropping to a spot and Notre Dame had some success with their tight
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  end down the seam. Like here you get Cody Simon as the mic in
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  the tampa or the pole runner, he's carrying arount. You have styles carrying
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  the type the wheel route vertical, so like those are you know they that
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  you can use to defeat zone coverage that so you have some some manned principles
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  within the zone. So again like just seeing more more and more concept diversity.
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  You know, as I said, they kept things a little basic,
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  particularly early, but like still saw cover four, still saw some quarter quarter
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  half and you know here you see them doing some some matching within those,
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  so you know, still building on things. Again. I think there they've
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  been fairly to vanilla both up front. You know, there has been a
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  lot of stunting or or you know, line movement the last couple of weeks
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  and and also in coverages at times. But you know, I think as
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  as guys get back and they obviously gear up to play Michigan. You'll see
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  a lot of that stuff come to the floor again. Yeah, we talked
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  yesterday about how the offense was building. We talked today about how the defense
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  is building. No question what that is building to. That is the game
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  up north in ann Arbor against Michigan eight days away. Can't believe it is
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  almost here. We're gonna be talking a bunch more about that game come up
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  in the next week. Over at buckeyehuddle dot com. You can find us
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  on the huddle board. That is where you can it is presented by Jeff
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  Ruby's Columbus and that is where you can find Ross and Mickey and Devin talking
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  about all this stuff. You can also find the version of this episode with
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  the video from the game so you can actually see what Ross is talking about.
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  That is a member exclusive feature for our members at bucke huddle dot com,
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  So if you want to see it, that's the place to do it.
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  first today. Thank you guys all for joining us every great day. We'll
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  talk to you tomorrow