Latest / Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning / Ross Fulton Analysis: 5 Questions About The Ohio State Defense
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Tuesday, November 10th. I'm
- 0:03Speaker 1: your host, Tom, or the Northwestern game in four days,
- 0:05Speaker 1: the game against Michigan in 18 days. Our show today
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- 0:23Speaker 1: We are about, oh, I don't know, about 48 hours
- 0:25Speaker 1: out or so from the Ohio State-Oregon game. And boy,
- 0:29Speaker 1: there have been a lot of opinions shared online about
- 0:31Speaker 1: exactly what is going on with the Ohio State team,
- 0:34Speaker 1: specifically the Ohio State defense. On today's show, we're going
- 0:37Speaker 1: to try and sort some of the fact from the
- 0:39Speaker 1: fiction and at least give you sort of a little
- 0:41Speaker 1: bit of an idea which criticisms are maybe a little
- 0:44Speaker 1: bit more legitimate than others. We're going to be doing
- 0:47Speaker 1: that with our buddy Ross Fulton. He is one of
- 0:48Speaker 1: our scheme insiders at BuckeyeInsiders.com. Ross, let's start with the
- 0:53Speaker 1: first one. I feel like this is one of sort
- 0:55Speaker 1: of a little bit of a broader one. And this
- 0:58Speaker 1: is one that I know that I've certainly said out
- 1:00Speaker 1: loud a few times over the last few weeks. Does
- 1:04Speaker 1: it feel like Matt Patricia's being a little bit conservative
- 1:07Speaker 1: in terms of sitting back and not necessarily trying to
- 1:10Speaker 1: really dial up the pressure on quarterbacks like Jaden Maiava
- 1:14Speaker 1: and Dylan Rayola, who maybe have not responded all that
- 1:17Speaker 1: well to pressure in the past?
- 1:20Speaker 2: Generally speaking? Yes.
- 1:22Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's a function of the overall
- 1:27Speaker 3: design of the defense where he's essentially running like to
- 1:32Speaker 3: simplify things like a three, four, right. And I know
- 1:35Speaker 3: this is a question I'll get into where you're at
- 1:37Speaker 3: your outside linebackers, if you will, are Kenyatta Jackson and
- 1:41Speaker 3: Russo who are then often not being used to rush
- 1:45Speaker 3: the passer. You've got often three defensive tackles, your cage rushing, um,
- 1:50Speaker 3: I will say he's been trying to create pressure that
- 1:54Speaker 3: got them some on Saturday against Oregon when Oregon called
- 1:58Speaker 3: screens on third and long. Or that double mug look
- 2:04Speaker 3: that I posted on X that led to a 40-yard
- 2:06Speaker 3: touchdown on second and 13. He's trying to do some
- 2:09Speaker 3: more designer things to create pressure or at least give
- 2:14Speaker 3: the threat of pressure because he knows that they have
- 2:19Speaker 3: trouble developing it organically so yes you know how much
- 2:26Speaker 3: pressure they could create even if they were bringing a
- 2:28Speaker 3: bunch more fire zones and sims I'm not sure but
- 2:33Speaker 3: I would agree that the general approach particularly with the
- 2:37Speaker 3: drop eight isn't effective but that's also because of how
- 2:41Speaker 3: they're conducting the the zone coverage with those eight defenders
- 2:45Speaker 3: who are dropping.
- 2:47Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about generating pressure organically
- 2:51Speaker 1: and sort of how they're creating those zones. It feels
- 2:54Speaker 1: like you've seen Kenyatta Jackson dropping into pass coverage as
- 2:59Speaker 1: often as you've seen him rushing the quarterback this year.
- 3:01Speaker 1: And I'm sure if you really went down to down,
- 3:03Speaker 1: it isn't really quite that dramatic. But it feels like
- 3:07Speaker 1: they're using him not in the pass rush. You know,
- 3:11Speaker 1: you would look at him and say strong side defensive end,
- 3:13Speaker 1: rushing the passer a bunch, being strong in the run,
- 3:15Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. And it just feels like
- 3:16Speaker 1: they've dropped him into past coverage a ton this year.
- 3:19Speaker 1: Is that, is that happening too much? Is that, is
- 3:23Speaker 1: that kind of just your thinking of the examples of
- 3:26Speaker 1: the times you saw it happen and not work? What's the, uh,
- 3:30Speaker 1: what's the diagnosis there?
- 3:32Speaker 3: I mean, it's happening too much because it's, he's not
- 3:36Speaker 3: effective at it and it's not, uh, so when he
- 3:39Speaker 3: does drop, it's, it's kind of a mess because they,
- 3:42Speaker 3: they backpedal, they don't get the depth. Um, But again,
- 3:46Speaker 3: it goes back to my previous answer. So like the
- 3:48Speaker 3: way that the scheme is set up, particularly like the
- 3:50Speaker 3: penny front, the odd front, he likes, but he, I mean,
- 3:54Speaker 3: Matt Patricia likes to use those, you know, stand up
- 3:59Speaker 3: outside linebackers as the apex defenders. And so, you know,
- 4:02Speaker 3: when you have the outside man on the line of scrimmage,
- 4:06Speaker 3: you know, you kind of want to split the difference
- 4:07Speaker 3: by apex. You're, you're kind of trying to split the
- 4:09Speaker 3: difference right between the offensive tackle and the most inside
- 4:14Speaker 3: wide receiver. And, USC and Oregon have exploited that. They've
- 4:18Speaker 3: used like lots of open trips formations, right? Where you
- 4:21Speaker 3: get sort of the absurdity of seeing Jackson or Roussel,
- 4:24Speaker 3: like as the point man on those bunch of trips looks. Again,
- 4:29Speaker 3: like that would not be the way I would want
- 4:32Speaker 3: to set up the defense. I would rather them rotate
- 4:36Speaker 3: the coverage. So you're rotating safeties or, you know, the
- 4:41Speaker 3: nickel or the corner towards those, uh, open sets, um,
- 4:46Speaker 3: or you're, you're bumping at your linebackers as apex defenders. Um, I,
- 4:51Speaker 3: you know, I, I have been on this. I mean, I,
- 4:55Speaker 3: last year Kenyatta Jackson did not play this role. Um,
- 4:58Speaker 3: I personally have, I have no evidence of this. I
- 5:02Speaker 3: kind of assumed that he came back to Ohio state
- 5:04Speaker 3: on the understanding that he would get to be more
- 5:06Speaker 3: of the outside, uh, edge player like King Curry was
- 5:11Speaker 3: last year.
- 5:13Speaker 2: Um, And, or Arval Reese was last year. Right.
- 5:15Speaker 3: But so last year they could use Arval Reese in
- 5:17Speaker 3: that role. Like, again, I think their best defense would
- 5:20Speaker 3: be to like get lighter. And like, so, you know,
- 5:24Speaker 3: it says the three defense tackles, like Kenyatta Jackson, we
- 5:27Speaker 3: talked about after the USC game, like he's one of
- 5:28Speaker 3: the four eye techniques. And then you have two outside
- 5:31Speaker 3: linebackers and Christian Allegro and Riley Pettijohn, who could be
- 5:34Speaker 3: those apex defenders instead.
- 5:37Speaker 2: You know, whether that happens, I don't know.
- 5:39Speaker 3: And you know why that is, but I can certainly
- 5:42Speaker 3: say that, There's the reason he's out there is because
- 5:46Speaker 3: of the design of the defense.
- 5:48Speaker 2: And, you know, it's not my preferred design.
- 5:52Speaker 3: But even within that design structure, I don't think that
- 5:55Speaker 3: he's well suited to that role.
- 5:57Speaker 1: All right. So now we're going to get a little
- 5:59Speaker 1: bit into that design. And this is one that I
- 6:01Speaker 1: think we could probably do 45 minutes on with 17
- 6:04Speaker 1: video clips. And that's not the format we're doing today.
- 6:06Speaker 1: So this is going to probably be a little bit
- 6:08Speaker 1: more of a high level conversation. But this is a
- 6:10Speaker 1: question from one of our members at BuckeyeInsiders.com, Yinzer Buck.
- 6:14Speaker 1: He wants to know, how does the Matt Patricia defensive
- 6:16Speaker 1: scheme differ from the other top defenses this year, like Georgia,
- 6:19Speaker 1: Notre Dame, UCLA, and others?
- 6:22Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I will say like, you know, my
- 6:24Speaker 3: understanding of other teams compared to Ohio State can be
- 6:28Speaker 3: probably more superficial. Like if people are on X, like
- 6:32Speaker 3: I highly recommend someone like Balmanac who looks more in
- 6:35Speaker 3: detail like other teams beyond the Ohio State defense. I
- 6:44Speaker 3: would say that we've compared it to Indiana, right? And
- 6:47Speaker 3: how Brian Haynes uses much more sim pressures. In discussing
- 6:52Speaker 3: this with the Balmanac and others, I think there's a
- 6:57Speaker 3: decent amount of similarity between what Patricia is doing and
- 7:00Speaker 3: Will Muschamp at Texas. It's not... he's not outside the ordinary.
- 7:06Speaker 3: Like you see this across college football, like this move
- 7:08Speaker 3: to like sort of the penny front, like Kirby smart
- 7:11Speaker 3: at Georgia. We're talking about like the mint front, like
- 7:13Speaker 3: these odd fronts that take away the B gaps, uh,
- 7:16Speaker 3: take away his own. You see a lot of like
- 7:17Speaker 3: the three high Tampa. So it's not like he's doing
- 7:23Speaker 3: something completely unique, even though like some of the down
- 7:26Speaker 3: to down calls may be kind of odd at times. Um,
- 7:30Speaker 3: it's just like, it's getting lost in translation.
- 7:32Speaker 2: Like the execution is really poor.
- 7:34Speaker 3: Um, you know, I, the linebacker play is like really
- 7:39Speaker 3: hurting them. Like the constant rotation of players through that position,
- 7:43Speaker 3: like their zone drops are really bad. Um, whether you
- 7:47Speaker 3: want to put that on Patricia, whether you want to
- 7:48Speaker 3: put that on James Laurinaitis, who like, I know he
- 7:50Speaker 3: kind of gets to wear the halo as a former
- 7:52Speaker 3: Ohio state player, but like the linebacker play has been
- 7:54Speaker 3: really bad. Like, you know, other position coaches get blamed
- 7:58Speaker 3: when their, their position is not performing. Like, sincere Johnson
- 8:02Speaker 3: started just all of a sudden playing a bunch of
- 8:04Speaker 3: snaps and Mike linebacker against Oregon on Saturday. And frankly,
- 8:07Speaker 3: it's probably, it was better at it than, than Alfred
- 8:09Speaker 3: has been. So, um, you know, they're, they're losing, leaving
- 8:13Speaker 3: like a lot of space in that, in those open zones.
- 8:17Speaker 3: And like, you know, Dylan real talked about like the
- 8:19Speaker 3: seams being uncovered. So they're just, it's, it's again, I
- 8:23Speaker 3: guess I wouldn't, I would not say in at a
- 8:27Speaker 3: high level, it's, it's in line with a lot of
- 8:30Speaker 3: the trends you're seeing. It's just like the things are
- 8:33Speaker 3: falling through the gaps.
- 8:36Speaker 1: All right, I'm going to skip a couple questions ahead.
- 8:38Speaker 1: And now, since you mentioned that Dylan Rayola quote, and
- 8:40Speaker 1: I'll read that in case people didn't hear that in
- 8:42Speaker 1: the postgame. Dylan Rayola postgame said, quote, we are confident
- 8:45Speaker 1: in our plan. We saw seams everywhere in their defense
- 8:48Speaker 1: when we were game planning for them. So this leads
- 8:51Speaker 1: into a question from Buckeye Insiders member Candy Kane. What
- 8:55Speaker 1: are they doing schematically defensively that teams are able to
- 8:57Speaker 1: exploit the middle of the field? And why does it
- 8:59Speaker 1: seem like teams are frequently targeting the back out of
- 9:02Speaker 1: the backfield?
- 9:04Speaker 3: Again, because they're getting stuck between like we've talked about,
- 9:08Speaker 3: like matching, like, you know, I guess in my mind,
- 9:11Speaker 3: they're sort of like you can spot drop. And that's
- 9:14Speaker 3: what Indiana has done. And that's what like a lot
- 9:16Speaker 3: of teams under Ryan Day have done. Right. Where you
- 9:17Speaker 3: just like play the zone. you can man match, which
- 9:20Speaker 3: is like what Nick Saban always loved to do, uh,
- 9:23Speaker 3: where you like carry, you're basically like playing man within
- 9:25Speaker 3: your zone and then you pass them off or you
- 9:27Speaker 3: can zone match, which is like what Gary Patterson's known
- 9:29Speaker 3: for doing that you're kind of playing your zone and matching.
- 9:31Speaker 3: And they're sort of, they can get stuck in between
- 9:34Speaker 3: where they like, they sometimes carry the seam routes.
- 9:38Speaker 1: Right.
- 9:38Speaker 3: So like Oregon, like ran this, like, you know, how
- 9:41Speaker 3: to dig route, which is like a deep in like
- 9:43Speaker 3: wide open. It's like, why'd that happen? It's like, well,
- 9:45Speaker 3: Earl Little is the Tampa, like the middle field player.
- 9:47Speaker 3: Like he carried the seam and you run dagger, which
- 9:49Speaker 3: is a concept, like run the seam and bring the
- 9:51Speaker 3: dig underneath it.
- 9:52Speaker 2: And it's wide open.
- 9:53Speaker 3: So they're like, again, they're, I don't know if it's
- 9:56Speaker 3: because they're doing too many things and they can't like
- 9:58Speaker 3: execute it.
- 9:59Speaker 2: Well, there's two.
- 10:00Speaker 3: Much, you know, uh, interchanging of like players, like, right.
- 10:04Speaker 3: Like too much rotation. Uh, but they just really struggle
- 10:08Speaker 3: and sort of like trading off routes. They get way
- 10:11Speaker 3: too much depth at like the wrong times, in my opinion, like, again,
- 10:14Speaker 3: like the, the linebackers will keep drifting in their zone drops.
- 10:18Speaker 3: And like all of a sudden, like I posted one
- 10:20Speaker 3: on X, like it's second and five and they're all
- 10:22Speaker 3: like 15 to 20 yards deep. And like the, the
- 10:26Speaker 3: middle of the field safety is like 30 yards deep.
- 10:29Speaker 3: And it's like, by being so conservative, they're giving up
- 10:31Speaker 3: explosives because it's like, you can just dump them off
- 10:33Speaker 3: and run for another 10 yards before anyone can touch you.
- 10:37Speaker 3: So I just, I like, they're just the association between
- 10:40Speaker 3: the zones.
- 10:40Speaker 2: I don't know.
- 10:40Speaker 3: They just have really struggled to like find their footing
- 10:44Speaker 3: at times this year. It's like they ran earlier in
- 10:45Speaker 3: the season there after Texas. they ran like a ton
- 10:48Speaker 3: of man and we went through like how teams were
- 10:51Speaker 3: using all these man beaters against them.
- 10:53Speaker 2: Right.
- 10:53Speaker 3: And like how they, and then now they're back to
- 10:55Speaker 3: playing a ton of zone, but just like not, they're
- 10:58Speaker 3: just like leaving holes in the zone. And like, especially
- 11:01Speaker 3: like in the middle of the field, like too much
- 11:02Speaker 3: in the flats. And again, that kind of goes back
- 11:05Speaker 3: to part of it is like a lot of times
- 11:06Speaker 3: it's like Kenyatta Jackson or Russell dropping. And those guys
- 11:09Speaker 3: like don't really seem to know what they're doing and
- 11:11Speaker 3: doing it. And you're just like, so there's like just
- 11:14Speaker 3: gaps left open as a result.
- 11:16Speaker 1: Yeah, there was that third and 15 where you look
- 11:18Speaker 1: and it's like there's no pressure on the quarterback, but
- 11:20Speaker 1: also there's absolutely no one in the middle of the
- 11:22Speaker 1: field that was just set up an easy, easy conversion
- 11:25Speaker 1: for them. Last up, we're going to do this Ohio
- 11:28Speaker 1: State press conference style. The last question is going to
- 11:31Speaker 1: be two quickies like Tim May style. These are related questions,
- 11:36Speaker 1: so we're going to throw them together. What's causing them
- 11:38Speaker 1: to still struggle to get lined up correctly on defense?
- 11:40Speaker 1: That's from Havoc1125. And related, if the defense is consistently
- 11:44Speaker 1: structurally unsound, is there any explanation for why that might be?
- 11:48Speaker 1: That's from our buddy Shane Falco.
- 11:50Speaker 3: Yeah, so this goes kind of to what I was
- 11:52Speaker 3: saying about, like, at a high level, you can see, like,
- 11:54Speaker 3: similarities to what people are doing, but, like, things are
- 11:57Speaker 3: getting lost. So, like, you know, Matt Patricia came from
- 12:00Speaker 3: the NFL. And so, like, the old cliches are somewhat true,
- 12:04Speaker 3: like the differences between college and the NFL, like the
- 12:06Speaker 3: hash marks, right? So the hash marks make a difference.
- 12:10Speaker 3: Teams in college will use tempo. So you see them
- 12:13Speaker 3: struggle sometimes to get still lined up against tempo. The
- 12:15Speaker 3: other thing they continue to struggle with for two years
- 12:18Speaker 3: is an issue. Last year's unbalanced formations. Like I posted
- 12:21Speaker 3: a few on X. If you want to like, look
- 12:22Speaker 3: and be like, how would this ever, like you you're
- 12:25Speaker 3: just making the players look bad. It's because like organs
- 12:27Speaker 3: and it goes tempo and gets an unbalanced and like
- 12:30Speaker 3: Ohio state cannot, they do not shift to the unbalanced.
- 12:33Speaker 3: Like you have to be able to identify it and
- 12:36Speaker 3: like shift yourself over. Um, and they, they just don't
- 12:39Speaker 3: do it. So then they like, aren't responding to motion correctly.
- 12:42Speaker 3: And so that's where they're getting structurally unsound and what
- 12:45Speaker 3: they're doing. Like, I think, you know, like that's again,
- 12:48Speaker 3: back to that, like second and 13 mug look, I,
- 12:52Speaker 3: that to me is unsound. Like when you have no
- 12:54Speaker 3: one outside the offensive tackle. Um, and like, I, I, you, again,
- 12:58Speaker 3: you can go and see other teams that will mug
- 13:00Speaker 3: their linebackers up like that. Jim Knowles would do it. Uh,
- 13:03Speaker 3: and it would, wouldn't work. And people get mad at
- 13:05Speaker 3: the time about that. Like, I, I don't think the
- 13:08Speaker 3: trade-off is, uh, of, uh, you know, showing potential pressure
- 13:12Speaker 3: is worth it, but it's just, those are the kinds
- 13:15Speaker 3: of things like unbalanced has gotten them for two years
- 13:17Speaker 3: and Oregon really took advantage of it, especially by going fast.
- 13:20Speaker 3: I do wonder, again, this goes to my linebacker point
- 13:24Speaker 3: is like, those are, those are the guys you would,
- 13:26Speaker 3: you would want to help you adjust the front against
- 13:30Speaker 3: unbalanced looks, especially when things are going fast. And like, again,
- 13:35Speaker 3: they're constantly rotating through like they, you know, Peyton Pierce
- 13:39Speaker 3: is probably the guy who can get the most lined up,
- 13:41Speaker 3: but like, he just can't play the position well enough
- 13:43Speaker 3: to play, you know, Ohio state middle linebacker.
- 13:45Speaker 2: Like it's sort of the bottom line. Like he's too small,
- 13:48Speaker 2: you know?
- 13:48Speaker 3: And so they constantly like, and they give guys reps
- 13:51Speaker 3: and like, you know, you get to the third series
- 13:53Speaker 3: and all of a sudden like Simon, Simeon Caldwell's in
- 13:56Speaker 3: the game and not Jay Timmons. And like, you know,
- 13:59Speaker 3: now Dominic Kelly's in the game now, like sincere Johnson's
- 14:02Speaker 3: in the game. And so like, I, we'll get back
- 14:05Speaker 3: on my hobby horse about an August. Everyone loves to
- 14:07Speaker 3: talk about rotation and like, this is what you get.
- 14:10Speaker 3: A lot of times rotation results from weakness, not strength.
- 14:14Speaker 1: All right, there you go. Answers to a few of
- 14:17Speaker 1: your questions about the Ohio state defense. We will have
- 14:19Speaker 1: Ross on back on a little later on in the week.
- 14:22Speaker 1: Talk about the Ohio state offense. We'll do a couple
- 14:24Speaker 1: of shows with some film in them as well. Get you,
- 14:27Speaker 1: get you a look at some of the details and
- 14:29Speaker 1: get into the nitty gritty on some of this stuff
- 14:31Speaker 1: as well. Cause I know those are always very popular and,
- 14:34Speaker 1: And there's going to be a lot to talk about.
- 14:35Speaker 1: But Tuesday at noon, we're going to be talking about
- 14:38Speaker 1: all this stuff with the Ohio State coaches. We're going
- 14:40Speaker 1: to talk to Ohio State head coach Ryan Day, Ohio
- 14:43Speaker 1: State offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, Ohio State defensive coordinator Matt Patricia.
- 14:47Speaker 1: I'm guessing there's going to be more than a little
- 14:49Speaker 1: bit of interest in that press conference and some of
- 14:50Speaker 1: the answers on those questions that they will be getting.
- 14:53Speaker 1: So going to be a fascinating Tuesday inside the Woody
- 14:56Speaker 1: Hayes Athletic Center. We'll be streaming that one for you
- 14:58Speaker 1: live at youtube.com slash at Buckeye Insiders. And then as
- 15:02Speaker 1: soon as it's over, You can find us at Buckeye insiders.com
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- 15:51Speaker 1: you guys all for joining us. Have a great day.
- 15:53Speaker 1: We'll talk to you tomorrow.