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Ross Fulton Analysis: Fact Or Fiction For Ohio State vs. Michigan · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buck Guys tomorrow morning for Wednesday, November twenty ninth. I'm your
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  host, Tom Moore. The game against Michigan is in three hundred and sixty
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  seven days. All right, we're having our buddy Ross Fulton on the show
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  again today. And here's the deal. We're gonna be this. Give me
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  first of all, when we have Ross on the show, we have the
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  We're sponsored by Jeff Ruby Steakhouse, proudly presenting nationally acclaimed USDA Prime Stake,
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  State Flud and associ impeccable service, live entertainment, and an attention to detail
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  that is simply unmatched. You can learn more and make reservations today at Jeffruby
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  dot com slash Columbus. All Right, so here's the deal. Ross is
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  not at Jeff Ruby today. Ross is out right now, out in public,
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  and so his audio is going to be a little off of what you
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  have normally come to love and expect with from him. But it has been
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  quite a week already, and so we're going to try and just make this
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  work. So Ross coming to us from somewhere in Middle America, as the
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  accounting was once said, let's let's we're gonna sort of address some of the
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  big narratives around the game after the game and sort of maybe play a little
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  factor fiction of was this really a big deal or not so ross Let's start
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  with the fourth down narrative, Ryan Day not going forward on fourth and one
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  from his own forty six in the first half, not going for it.
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  You know, I'm really trying to get a closer kick or maybe go for
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  a touchdown right before halftime. How big of a a an issue was that
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  to you? I thought it was an issue on both of them. I
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  mean, particularly in hindsight when you're in a very low possession game. On
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  the one hand, I guess I can I'm empathetic that. You know,
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  High State has been a defensive led team this year. They are what,
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  as we talked about, number one and sp plus going into the game.
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  So I'm sure in the back of Day's mind he was thinking he didn't want
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  to put his defense in a bad position akin to what happened against Rutgers.
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  But you know, as it played out, that defense couldn't get off the
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  field in the second half, and you know, Michigan is content to huddle
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  and you know, snap the ball within five seconds every play and so you're
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  you're in a particular with the new clock rules in a very low possession game.
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  I think Michigan had like sixty plays and how to say, a fifty
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  six or something like that. So you know, I think the first one,
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  I think I had a couple of problems with it, even if you
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  want to punt, I thought that spot was questionable at best. I thought
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  it was something that needed to get reviewed. You can always you can do
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  a couple of things. You can get up there. You can try to
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  draw Michigan off sides, akin to what Michigan did on their final possession before
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  kicking the field goal. And at the very least, if you don't get
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  them to jump, you can, you know, get in the rest ears
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  you can get try to get a measurement. You can challenge it yourself.
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  Even if short of that, I mean I personally think they should go.
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  I I don't like this trend of Ryan Day feeling like things are kind of
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  getting more and more conservative as his ten year progresses at a lot of state,
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  So I didn't like that decision. Similarly, like the one right before
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  half, I thought that was a chance to grab momentum, Like at best,
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  I mean I don't know, you know, he sees Jane fielding in
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  practice, I don't know what, you know, he had never kicked one
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  like that in the game. He did make one, which more called a
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  time out. But let's say, you know, if you have a forty
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  percent chance to make that kick, I think you have about the same amount
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  of chance to make the fourth down conversion. So I just think that was
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  really a chance to steal a possession there. And you know, I just
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  think he you know, people want to talk about like him calling plays,
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  messing with his decision making those situations, but I think, I don't know
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  if I don't want to use that as an excuse necessarily, I think he
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  just needs to have a plan. You know, I personally would prefer him
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  to be more aggressive uniformly in the situation. So that one, I do
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  think was an issue, and it certainly caught up with them because they just
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  could after the interception, the first interception, they could just never steal back
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  in possession. Yeah, that did feel like that first interception really kind of
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  swung the game, and it well, you know, I didn't swing the
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  game permanently, but certainly swung the game in Michigan's favor to start with,
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  and in a way that the first couple drives definitely had not. So let's
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  talk a little bit about Kyle McCord, because he had his ups obviously had
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  the two interceptions. I went back and rewatched. I had not seen the
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  game. You know, I do not have a great view from the sidelines,
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  So when I went back and rewatched, there were kind of a little
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  bit of an extenuating circumstance for both of those interceptions. On the first one,
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  Marvin Harrison, you know, kind of got beat to the spot and
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  really fight through it. And then in the second one he did get hit
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  right as he was releasing the ball. What were your thoughts on Kyle McCord's
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  overall performance on the day, and then you know, we'll talk about those
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  two interceptions and more detail on the show a little later on the week,
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  but you know, just on those those two interceptions kind of broadly as well.
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  Yeah, I think those are plays, as you said, like,
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  I think they're well worth breaking down because they're a good example of some of
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  the things Michigan is doing on defense and how High State did kind of crack
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  the code. But you know, I again, it's it's I don't think
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  either. I would really blame fully on McCord. Like the first one was
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  an r PO. We'll talk about it, like they had a unique double
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  team. He made the right read to pull and through the RPO. It's
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  just kind of a play that was just a dead play. He had to
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  figure out a way to nerve it in the ground. Second one, you
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  know, was an unfortunate situation. Donovan Jackson got his footstepped down on a
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  twist and he uh, you know, got hit when he's throwing. But
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  I think kind of McCord's like again, it's sort of like Schrodinger's cat,
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  right, Like there's there's things that people are anti McCord. There's there's things
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  that they can point to as examples. If peopore pro McCord, there's things
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  they can pour too. And like it was yet another game where after the
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  first quarter, particular after the interception, like he got better. Like I
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  think in the second half he played probably some of his best football of the
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  season, particularly given everything that Michigan was throwing at him. So you know,
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  I think he was by the end playing well enough to win. It's
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  just again like in a low possession game, they got themselves behind the eight
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  ball and that was that was enough. So there's Bow, my son Bow
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  agrees special guest appearance. Does he have a sponsor? I don't think we've
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  I don't think we've gotten his appearance as sponsored yet. We'll work on that
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  maybe next. So let's talk a little bit about defense and defensive coordinator Jim
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  Knowles, because you know, he is another person who there was sort of
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  a growing narrative throughout the year that boy, Jim Knowles has really gotten it
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  all figured out. The defense has really got it all figured out. And
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  then you know, they had the drive at the end of the game and
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  they didn't get off the field at all without giving up points. You know,
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  Nole's talked about stop right being his favorite stat and their stop rate was
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  zero in the second half because they didn't didn't get off the field without giving
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  up points at it any point in the second half. But they also held
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  Michigan to thirty points and that was with that one interception basically handing Michigan a
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  touchdown to start the game. So and you would think twenty three points against
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  one of the top offenses the nation, that's pretty good. So you know,
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  overall, like how do you grade out Jim Knowles and the defensive performance
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  throughout the course of the game. Yeah, I have to say I was
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  probably pretty disappointed in it, and maybe more so than the offense. And
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  like you can look at the point total, but again, it was like
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  a very low possession game, so like you know, what was Michigan's point
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  per possession? I mean they didn't punt in the second half, and and
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  just overall it just felt like some of like we talked about, like how
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  they continue to versify the scheme throughout the year, and it was like kind
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  of just disappeared, and it was just very overall pretty vanilla and pretty safe,
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  but like safe in a way it was like easy to exploit, like,
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  hey, we're gonna be able. Michigan knows that we're going to be
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  able to you know, attack the week of Girl Zone with throws, and
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  we're gonna be able to make it suchually like we put a corner and run
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  support in certain situations, and like there just weren't a lot of like the
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  adjustments and like particularly like when you again we can get into this, uh
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  with like specific plays to show, but like compare to all the things that
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  Michigan was doing on defense, It's just it's kind of night and day and
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  like it's not like, yes, Nole's is running a lot more split safety
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  like cover four, cover cover half stuff, quarter quarter and a half and
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  maybe you know, Lathan Franson's absence made him be very safe and not trusting
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  things as much in the back end, but I just don't You're still not
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  seeing like what some of the things he did at Oklahoma State, and like
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  after two years, it just sort of that was a little concerning. So
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  yes, like they didn't give up big plays, they didn't give up a
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  ton of points. You know, Ohio State had a chance to win,
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  like you certainly like if you're going to go through, like what were the
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  game changing things? Like definitely the first interception is a far bigger than anything
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  that happened on defense, but like you basically needed the defense to be in
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  a position to like steal a possession back or like special teams steal a position
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  possession back, and like instead you had like Michigan's punting was much better,
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  their field goal kicking was much better. Like defensively, they created more havoc
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  plays, like especially like that last drive, Like at some point, like
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  you got to go back to what you did last year and like throw it
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  out and like you know, if Michigan breaks, when that's that's But you
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  got to like there's things you can do without being like cover zero, bringing
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  the house to like try to stop the run game. You know, we've
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  talked about like fire zones and some pressures like bringing bringing pressure from one side
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  while being conservative on the other side, or you know, playing a zone
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  behind it. So like, yes, Michigan didn't make the mistakes, Like
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  Michigan got some breaks like JJ McCarthy throwing across his body. You know,
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  like sometimes it's like not your day again. It's a really good team and
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  like and like you know, Ohio State one, like when you look like
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  did we get that be beat that badly? Like Parker Fleming's like advanced stats
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  right, like Ohio State was better than Michigan, and this is the second
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  year like on a down for down basis, Ohio State outperformed him. But
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  like you know, they had mistakes between the interception and the fourth down decisions,
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  and so none of that's on Knowles and so maybe if those things don't
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  happen, like they're the defensive philosophy sufficient, but like it's really just like
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  when you get down to it, then, like you're in the game,
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  you're in and you need to get the ball back and you can't allow a
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  seven minute drive, and so you've got to do something. You know,
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  you got to take some chances or come up with something to throw Michigan off
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  off schedule. So I think, you know, there's a little bit of
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  blame to go around everyone, all right. And by the way, when
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  Ross says Parker Fleming, he is not talking about the Ohio States Special Teams
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  coach. He is talking about at stats o War on Twitter. He's one
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  of those sort of advanced stats guys who has a lot of really interesting,
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  insightful stuff to talk about with games, and he talks about net success rate
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  and that's the stat that Ross is sighting there. So well, we will
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  have Ross in a more sonically excellent place next time, probably not as much
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  a diverse sound coming in through you through your speakers, but we will.
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  Glad, glad we could get Ross on here just to chat through some of
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  this stuff before the game was too far in the rear of your mirror,
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  because there's you know, it's always interesting to suit. Everyone has their very
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  strong thoughts as soon as the game's over and everything is a final, you
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  know, unquestionable narrative around someone or something or a program, and then you
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  get a little separation and it's like, well, there's probably a little more
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  gray there and not all black and white. So I wanted to get Ross
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  in to talk about that, and we will get Ross back to really break
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  down some of the individual plays on both offense and defense a little later on
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  in the week when he is back back home and in a better spot to
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  have a more in depth conversation all that on all that kind of stuff.
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  And when he is back. He will be sponsored once again by Jeff Ruby
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  steak House, the award winning upscale steakhouse in downtown Columbus, named one of
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  the top fifty steakhouses in America by Food Network. Go to Jeffruby dot com
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  slash Columbus to make reservations, check out the menu today that we'll 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.