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After An Easy Win Over Michigan State, Is Ohio State's Offense Finally Hitting Its Stride? · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to buck Eyes tomorrow morning for Sunday, November twelfth. I'm your host,
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  Tom Or. The Minnesota game is in six days, the game against
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  Michigan in thirteen days. Buck Eyes took care of business Saturday night in the
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  Horseshoe thirty eight to three over Michigan State and joined by Kevin Noon of Buckeyhuddle
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  dot Com. Kevin, it was a five touchdown win that was absolutely not
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  as close as the score indicated. You know who picked thirty eight to three
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  as a final score. Someone who just took a complete shot in the dark.
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  No, this guy right here, two thumbs and a correct score.
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  But yeah, it was. It was a game where Ohio State got out
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  to a really good start. You know, scored on its first drive,
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  I think scored on its first couple of drives, and Tom McCord was sharp.
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  Marvin Harrison Junior did Marvin Harrison junior type of things, and even with
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  a couple of key defensive players out, the defense took care of business.
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  Let's not pretend that miss State is any sort of world beater. They have
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  helmets and shoulder pads and scholarships and issues like any of the rest of us.
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  So you know, it's still a good win. I don't think Michigan
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  State has issues like the rest of us. I don't want to speak for
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  anyone else, but their issues may go beyond the issues that the rest of
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  us have. But you know, one of their issues on Saturday night was,
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  hey, they can't really stop the Ohio State offense because, as you
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  said, the first first seven drives for Ohio State touchdown, touchdown, touchdown,
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  punt, they went three and out, touchdown, touchdown, field goal.
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  And that got you to, you know, the basically the midway point
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  of the third quarter, and at that point Ohio State started pulling starters off
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  the field. It was it was the first time in a long time,
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  maybe all season, that this Ohio State offense has really looked like you know
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  that you saw them going down the field and it looked like what the CJ.
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  Stroud era Ohio State offenses have, you know, looked like against that
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  type you know, that type of opponent like this. You know, they
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  put up fifty six points in the first half in twenty twenty one. They
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  didn't quite do that in this one. But many it was just boom,
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  boom, boom, just there was like a four place seventy one yard drive.
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  It was just it looks like things are maybe starting to come together.
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  Yeah. Maybe under Stroud there were a lot more two, three, four
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  play drives. I think there was a thirteen play drive in there. It
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  was a little bit more station to station. But we are not that far
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  removed from Ohio State coming out and certainly being down nine to six to Rutgers
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  other games where Ohio State needs to really come on in the third quarter.
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  In this game, that was certainly was not the case. I mean,
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  Marvin Harrison Junior was a cheat code. Once again, we haven't even really
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  mentioned Trevion Henderson. He ran for what was it, sixty three yards,
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  but he still looked really good. This was not a case of Trevion being
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  stuck at sixty three yards because he wasn't effective. It's just not the course
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  of the game, the way that things went down. Ohio State with thirty
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  two carries on the game, but I think a lot of that too was
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  because okay, we're just trying to play out the clock. Now we bring
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  in Evan Pryor at that point to go. I mean, obviously they seem
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  to be bound and determined not to play Alan Hayden at this point not gonna
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  burn his red shirt over this one. But yeah, I think that I
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  think that we saw some glimpses to a much more functional offense than what we
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  have seen at times this year. And as I get ready to write tail
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  the tape for Minnesota, I expect some of these offensive numbers to be a
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  little bit better than what I wrote in the Michigan State game. Yeah,
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  And one of the reasons that the offense looks look the way it did on
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  Saturday night was Marvin har Harrison Junior. He was targeted nine times, seven
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  catches, one hundred and forty nine yards, two touchdowns, also had a
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  nineteen yard run for a touchdown, so he basically, you know, one
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  hundred and what sixty eight yards one hundred and sixty one hundred and sixty eight
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  yards of total offense, three touchdowns in just over one half of it was
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  you know, this was the you know, I think it's it's overly simplified
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  to say, like, just throw it to Marvin Harrison every play, because
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  you know, he makes amazing things happen even in bad situations, and that
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  is an oversimplification. But also when you throw it to Marvin Harrison just about
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  every play. It seems like crazy good things happen pretty frequently. And I
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  think that he also benefits from having Kate Stover back out there. And Kate
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  Stover had a big game and Mecca Buka maybe just didn't look right. He
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  was targeted five times, only had the one reception. But Marvin Harrison Junior
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  just really was able to get out there and and do his thing. He
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  was able to get a separation. He just runs such great routes. Michigan
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  State obviously was not unaware of who one to eight was, so he was
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  not out there in a lot of cases of being in single coverage. He
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  was just able to go out and do what it is that he does,
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  and that is just make great. But having Kate Stover back out there as
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  well, who played a half as well as he was coming back from from
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  injury, I think having that one two punch right there is huge. Ohio
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  State still has some time, I think, to get a Mecha Buka back
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  in rhythm, and that's really kind of one of these big things of where
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  if Ohio State is able to have a couple of options in the passing game,
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  is able to have a healthy Travian Anderson with a chip trainum or somebody
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  as kind of a change of pace. That's going to be a big difference
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  compared to what Ohio State has gone into the last two Michigan games with.
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  Yeah, no question on the defensive side of the ball, was playing without
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  three starters. You look at Michigan State's numbers this year and it was not
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  like a big surprise that Michigan State was not a particularly gifted offense. But
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  even you know, playing without Tommy Iikenberg, playing without both of your starting
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  safeties, you know, no Lathan Ransom, no Josh Proctor, that was
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  you know, y, that's substantially shorthanded. Michigan State is not a great
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  passing attack. Michigan State is not a great rushing attack. But the buck
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  Eyes, you know, were not dominant in the way that they have been
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  at times this season, but they were you know, they got off the
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  field when they had to get off the field. Yeah, you look at
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  Michigan State a hundred and eighty two yards, I think that they're gonna be
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  people. They're gonna be like, well, they gave up too much gardage
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  on the ground. Well, when you go and you look at it was
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  ninety four yards. Oh they're you know drives, su felt like they were
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  prolonged. Well, Michigan State was two or fourteen on on third down.
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  So I think there's the moment of how you felt like right there in that
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  moment. But then when you sit there and you look at it more from
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  a top down type of view, it's like, Eh, maybe it wasn't
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  as bad as as we thought. I mean, sure they certainly missed Tommy
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  I can work out there. I in my opinion, I think that there
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  were a couple of of of runs that probably would have been bottled up a
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  lot quicker by Tommy than than what we saw out there. But I mean,
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  you're still held a big ten team, a team coming off of a
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  win. Even though that I think maybe that was more of Nebraska doing Nebraska
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  things than Sparti doing Sparty things. It was still a very good effort and
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  we know that it's there's so much about emotion and building off off of successes,
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  and Ohio State is going to be going into Minnesota with successes, and
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  if Ohio State's able to continue that through through the Minnesota game, which I
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  think everybody's going to be expecting haven't seen a line yet here at this late
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  hour that we're recording the show. You know you're gonna be feeling pretty good
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  going into that Michigan game. And I'll tell you Michigan can sit there and
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  say bet all at once or whatever. It doesn't know what's going on necessarily
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  in terms of its coaching, makeup of its team and everything else. But
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  Ohio State certainly is going to be in that spot to try and claim a
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  big ten East title and get itself to Indianapolis and slay a pretty annoying dragon
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  known as the Michigan fan base while it's at it. Yeah, well,
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  before we get to Michigan, we should talk of just a little bit more
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  about Saturday nights. But we're going to talk about the interesting stuff that happened
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  towards the end because the game was settled at halftime. The game was over
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  over at halftime, but you did get a chance to see, really for
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  the first time, it feels like this year some real extended run for the
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  younger guys. Like I know they played against Youngstown State in the second half
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  a little bit and a little bit against Western Kentucky, but now you've got
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  some of the true freshmen who you know, maybe he came in, you
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  know, Lincoln Kingholes for example, came in over the summer, so really
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  got a late start, was not ready to come in even in garbage time
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  earlier in the season. Same thing with like Calvin Simpson Hunt for example,
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  on the defensive side of the ball. He just lost his black stripe,
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  just lost his black stripe this week and then goes out and you start you're
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  starting to see him make a little bit of an impact on the field very
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  late in the games. You're not expecting big things from him in the next
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  two weeks or anything, but you sort of art to see the flashes.
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  It's like, you know, September baseball, where you call up you know,
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  some of your prospects and it's like, okay, a little something to
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  think about for the future. Lincoln Keyholes. You know, it's two of
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  three. You don't want to read too much into two of three for eighteen
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  yards. But controversy, yeah, yeah, let's yeah, let's not let's
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  not hand him the starting job just yet. But you know, you saw
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  him, You saw Jelannie Thurman. I think people people saw enough of Jolanni
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  Thurman. It wasn't It wasn't a ton it was two catches for eighteen yards.
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  But there's a little something to get excited about with Jolanni. Think it
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  just looks different. Yeah, I mean this was this was a little bit
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  of a okay for the you know, the few, the proud that stuck
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  around through the cold, uh and the late evening hours of a blowout game,
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  they were rewarded with, you know, some some interesting stuff to uh
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  think about for the future. Yeah, I think that. I think that
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  the huddle message board over at Buckey huddle dot com is going to have a
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  lot of talk about that one. People kind of sleep off tonight. I'm
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  sure they enjoyed a couple pops along the way or whatever, go back and
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  do that rewatch and be like, Okay, I kind of an idea of
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  what it is that you know, Ohio State has coming next. I mean,
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  Lincoln Keenholts elevated a little bit because Devin Brown during warm ups looked a
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  little gimpy. So I think that just moved everybody up at that point,
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  and I'm sure they wanted to get a good look at Keyholts as much as
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  they could. At that point. There was a point out there where I
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  looked, and it was pretty much you know, freshman DB's across the board,
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  with Ryan Turner thrown in there as well. We certainly saw I had
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  to check my I had to check my roster for some of the guys that
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  we saw on d line. I saw C. J. Hicks with a
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  big tackle for loss. I mean, you could see what the future is
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  going to look like. And while everybody's excited about the future, you only
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  get so many games in the presence. So let's not wish away into these
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  games. With two left in the regular season, and if everything goes according
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  to the plans of Buckeye fans, five games in total, with the potential
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  three in the postseason, yeah, and only one more home game left in
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  the twenty twenty three Ohio State football season. That doesn't seem possible. And
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  then you know, here here we are when I say this start of the
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  show, thirteen days until the game against Michigan. Boy, it is after
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  Michigan took care of Penn State, that not much question. You know,
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  unless Maryland or Minnesota pulls off a real shocker next week, that is gonna
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  be eleven and o versus eleven and oh up in ann Arbor, and boy
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  will won't this be an eventful couple weeks as we head into that game,
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  as Michigan gets its whole legal situation sorted out, and whether Jim Harbaugh gets
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  to coach in that game or the Maryland game, or you know, presumably
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  present potentially the Big Ten Championship game, if they make it that far.
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  We'll be sorting all that stuff out at Buckeye Huddle dot com all week long
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  and for the next couple weeks as we head into that Michigan game. We
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  hope you can join us there. It has been a very, very active
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  and mostly fun few few weeks on the huddle board. There. It is
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  I have never seen a thread, a message board thread take off quite like
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  that one did. Thousands and thousands of posts at this point and just constant
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  activity and new information coming out. You get disappointed when you look and it's
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  like nobody's talked to it for like fifteen minutes, like yessing on. Yeah,
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  and that's sometimes at like four in the morning that no one has posted
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  in it for fifteen minutes. But yeah, so you can you can find
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  us there. You want to talk to us, You want to talk to
• 12:33
  Mark Givler about recruiting. You want to talk to Ross and Justin and Mikey
• 12:39
  about Mickey about our x's and o's making you a smarter football fan. That
• 12:43
  is all on the huddle Board, presented by Jeff Ruby Steakhouse all at bucket
• 12:46
  huddle dot com. So if you've thought like, eh, maybe maybe I'll
• 12:50
  try this, it'd be nice to you know, support those guys or just
• 12:52
  hey, might be good to get access to a little more information during what
• 12:56
  is a pretty high stakes time of year for the Ohio State football team,
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  between the Michigan game, early signing day, all that kind of stuff.
• 13:05
  You can sign You can sign up today bucke huddle dot com. Try it
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  for a month, see if you like it, and if you do,
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  great, stick around. But you know that that first month is going to
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  give you a lot of information during a very very significant time of year and
• 13:18
  time in history for the Ohio State football program. So that will do it
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  for today. Thank you guys all for joining us. Have a great day.
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  We'll talk to you tomorrow.