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Where Does The Ohio State Quarterback Battle Stand Entering Week 2? · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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Welcome to a very special live edition of Buckeyes Tomorrow Morning for Wednesday, September
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sixth. I'm your host, Tom Moore. The Youngstown State game is in
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three days. No matter what, Tony Gradman, just try to talk me
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into the game. It gets fishuing in eighty days. Tony and I live
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inside the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. Tony, we just talked to Ryan Day,
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we talked to Jim Knowles. I have maybe more notes than I've ever
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had from a two coach press conference, so we might go until it is
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literally tomorrow morning. Right now, Kevin is freaking out behind the camera.
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I can see him having a little bit of a breakdown. It's fine,
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it's fine. Let's start with the quarterbacks, Tony. What's going on with
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the quarterbacks? Oh? Well, Kyle McCord is still your starter, and
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Ryan Day wants to play Devin Brown some more. Interestingly, he would also
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like to play Kyle McCord more. I would like to get all of them
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some more snaps, and that's kind of an issue at the point at this
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moment is finding apps for everybody. But no no changes other than you want
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to get Devin Brown back out there. Concords, some good, some bad,
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some stuff that everybody wants to have back, just as Ryan Day said
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after the game, and didn't really change his mind after after watching film.
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But nothing no like the horror. The horror. Yeah, you know,
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and I think you go back and listen to our postgame show, and you
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go back and listen to the Lucky Weekly that we dropped this morning, and
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it's kind of yeah, it is what the first game looks like. You
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don't Ryan a shared with us the axiom that we shared it after the game.
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You get more, you know, you bring just improvance between game one
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and game two, because he talked about the fact that you just you have
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you come into the season with a bunch of assumptions you think based on what
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you've seen in practice. I think this will work. I assume this will
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work. I assume this type of you know, this personnel grouping is the
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master. This type of play will work well with this personnel grouping or whatever
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it is. And then he's and then he said, you know, you
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get into game one and you find out which if your assumptions are wrong,
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and then you have to adjust to that, which is interesting. I've never
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heard the game one to game two thing explained in quite that way, but
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he said it, and it was kind of like, yeah, that makes
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sense. Yeah, the now he didn't want to go into detail on what
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those assumptions were, which is no surprise, but yeah, I think we
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all do. Y'all. You always go in thinking and expecting some things to
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happen, but then you also have to expect the unexpected, which throws everything
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out the window. And we'll get into that later. But yeah, you
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go in and you seen everything you've seen in practice, you expect things to
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go one way. You have I don't know if it's as expectations as hope.
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Hope is an assumption. I think it's all of those things. And
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then the next week is fixing what didn't go right and making the assumptions become
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eventualities. I guess, well, you're just you're working with a bigger data
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say at that point, and the data set for Kyle McCord was a bunch
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of times last year where he came in and handed the ball off in games
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that were fifty two trillion into three and that's not particularly useful data. Now
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you have some useful data against what is you know, you know, people
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can't wait to tell you how terrible Indiana is. But the Indiana defense is
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not bad. That is that is a team that's defense has some talented you
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know, some talent on defense. Is a pretty well coached team on defense.
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That's Tom Allen's side of the ball. So generally your head coach that
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side of the ball is going to be decent. So now you have some
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more useful data. And they did not get as many snaps for Devin Brown
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as they wanted to. But Ryan, they talked about the fact that he
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wanted to get Kyle McCord into rhythm. Even you want to see what Kyle
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m accord looks like when he is kind of the guy, and he pulled
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him for one drive in the first half and then one at the very end
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of the game. But you kind of have to because if you're going to
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be the quarterback, who is going to be the guide during the course of
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the season, potentially you gotta see. You don't want to have the well,
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my wrong about this because I didn't pull this guy. You know,
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I pulled this guy off the field and we're rotating drives or whatever. It
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is. The reason coaches hate having to do this to deal with two quarterbacks,
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and why they want one guy to step up is because there is no
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right way to do this. There are only wrong ways to try to find
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snaps for guys. And they said they set out to have him Deno bock
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him out on the third drive, and you hope the situation allows for that.
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And then they wanted him to come out on the fifth drive, and
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you hope the situation allows for that. But this is a living thing,
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living breathing thing each game, and so you can only do so much with
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your hopes and assumptions. And you know, there was a lot of oh,
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we have a super chat, let's get a super chat. Is now
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a bad time to ask cliffs and their thoughts on basic a conference rod team
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week one? Jordan Kapler wants to know if this is a bad time to
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ask Clempson about facing a conference road team in week one? And I tweeted
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something along those lines last night, and I had a bunch of people who
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couldn't w to tell me, well, Duke is way better than Indiana,
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so that's a terrible comparison, and say, okay, Indiana is well.
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I mean one of them said, well, Duke's like fourteen points better than
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Indiana. Well, Ohio State won by twenty and Clemson lost by twenty one,
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and Tony forty one I think is more than fourteen. So even you
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know, it feels like it feels like there's probably an underlying point to all
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of this. The point is any win on the road, conference player or
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else else wise is a good win. And you don't ever have to apologize
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for a win on the road in the conference, and coaches will take them
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and run all day long. Herbert Meyer did it, Jim Trussell did it.
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You you get, you get the win, and you get out of
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Dodge. That's the whole thing. That's the whole saying about getting out of
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Dodge like it came from tom football coaches, Yes, football in the eighteen
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sixties, Yes, yes, and Rutgers, Yes, that is a Dodge
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city, famously right down to try to train scataways. I think part of
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this whole thing. I think there's several reasons for this disconnect. The one
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that I'm going to talk about right now is the fact that I think one
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group of people, and i think I'm including us in that group, is
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saying anytime you get a win on the road in conference. That's good.
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That is a positive thing. I think other people are hearing that and saying,
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look at these morons. They're saying, this outcome is good enough for
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a high state to reach what their ultimate goals are. And that's not at
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all what we're saying. That's not at all what we're saying. Ryan A,
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in fact, said exactly the opposite during the interview today too. I
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mean, you go on the road, you get your win, you have
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a bunch of stuff to work from. There was good stuff to look at,
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there was bad stuff that they have to improve on. That's what week
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one is. And I think that you know, there's people are sort of
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talking past each other right now where you know this is yeah, that that
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was a win. It was a twenty point road win on the road against
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a team that has a pulse that This was not Northwestern, this was not
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Youngstown State. This was a team that's going to win multiple games this year.
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Whether that's three or five or whatever, we'll see. But it's week
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one. There's a thousand things that can go wrong week one, especially when
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you're on the road, especially when you're playing a new quarterback. That's what
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happened to Clemson. Was Look at all the dumb crap that went wrong for
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Clemson in that game on Monday night. Stuff didn't go perfectly for all I
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was date, but they didn't do that. Yeah, and that's why.
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Yeah, So you're saying that this will get it done every week. Nobody
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is saying that, like you, they're playing the way they played in week
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one will not work out in week twelve, in game twelve, And that's
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that's just a dishonest argument, basically. And we're saying a win is better
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than a loss every single time. I don't care if it's the prettiest loss,
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it's still in the wrong column. And go back to urban Meyer.
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What's the best thing about being want to know? Like, what's the best
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thing about being six? And now it was always you know, any win
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was better than any loss. And if that's what people are trying to argue
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with us about, I feel pretty good about my argument. Well, Ohio
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State is one of those programs where there are no moral victories. And the
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same people who are telling you right now that Week one was grossly unacceptable and
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there are standards. If you ask them about moral victories, we'll tell you
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there are no moral victories. In Ohio States. So this is the only
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you know, this is the kind of victory. Yet it's literally a victory.
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So there are moral losses though, and they come from close victories.
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Anything you can do to be miserable, and that's that's I think, my
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big, my big takeaway. You know, I thought one of the things
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that was interesting was Day was asked about, you know, why were there
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not more shot stop there? You you kind of logged where you know,
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air yards is something we talk about a lot with McCarthy and Michigan's offense.
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You logged that with Colm McCord. What did you kind of find in terms
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of how far they were throwing downfield? I'm not expecting exact numbers, but
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no, and then and and then sort of the why that Ryan Day lad
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out behind that? I think really there were only maybe two legitimately down twenty
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yards downfield, two or three. One of them didn't count because it was
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to Marvin Harrison. He had stepped out, so that didn't count. So
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maybe maybe three. But he said, you know, they dialed some stuff
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up. But a lot of it just comes down to the confidence in the
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offensive, lying the confidence in the quarterback. These things need to marry and
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and mesh and so when that happens, they will call more. But this
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is also about a situation of just trying to control the controllables and keeping things
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going, keeping staying ahead of schedule, because they're having some issues getting some
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running game going, So you didn't want to start out in second to ten.
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He's said. The more of that, the more of that the Buckeyes
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play, the more of the quarterbacks play, they'll be more comfortable dealing with
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a second and ten down the road than they necessarily are in the first game.
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And when we talk about staying on schedule, you're talking about getting four
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yards on first down and then getting at least half of what you need on
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the later later downs, and then making it on third and fourth. So
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you know second get sting in second and six and third and three or shorter,
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and you know, converting those third downs. So when you do that,
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that's generally sort of where you're you generally perceive it to be. You
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can either run or pass here. You know you will have times when you're
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running on second and eighteen, but you know generally that's not you're not going
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to pick the first down up by running on second eighteen. We have a
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super chat super Chet Last Wing Butterfly are soon to be conference partner. Oregon
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ran up the score on the lesser opponent to eighty one. Oregon running up
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the score to eighty one on a lesser opponent, which I think one thing
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that is in this question that she didn't mention is an in state opponent.
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Yeah, Portland State. I generally don't back. And I say this knowing
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that Ohio State hung seventy seven on Bowling Green a few years ago. But
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I generally think, you know, if you're going to hang you know,
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a a like eyebrow raising, like oh kind of score on someone, it's
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generally going to not be an in state school because you've got some you're buildings
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an ill will in state like, you don't give a crap if you do
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that too. Oh, to just pick another school that had an unfortunate a
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series of unfortunate events over the weekend. Arkansas State, Yeah, you would,
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you know, you'd be much threatened. We're willing to do that if
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you're Ohio State, to do that to U See Davis or Arkansas State or
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Idaho rather than doing it to Youngstown State or Bowling Green or Miami. Yeah,
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doing it to a coaching staff that you'll be inviting to the coach's clinic
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next April. Like that's you know, but here's your check. Take take
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care, you know, six hundred thousand or whatever, because this is this
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is what we paid for six six hundred thousand. What year are you talking
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about? Well, for I think Portland State may have gotten like six fifty.
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It's only like the one point three for like you know, you bring
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in Buffalo to beat up on something like that, or UCLA you pay them
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one point five to not have to play them like Michigan. And yet who's
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who's coming back on Michigan schedule now? Can't can't escape them? Actually,
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Michigan has been able to escape teams that have been under schedule before. No,
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I can't think of one example anyway. Moving on the offensive line,
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you know, the quarterbacks are kind of the big story du jour or do
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week whatever that is. But the offensive line, I think at this point,
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after rewatching the game, I think the offensive line getting right and improving
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their play is I think the bigger concern. Can they improve it? Only
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one guy on the offensive line graded out as a champion. That was Josh
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Fryer. But Ryan Day also talked about the fact that the problems that they
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saw on film, and they solve problems on film, which is why only
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one guy graded out as a Champion. The problems they saw on film were
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the fixable kind of problems. It was not oh this guy can't this guy
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legitimately can't do it. It was oh, he was in the wrong place.
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Oh he was looking at the wrong thing. Oh he tried to block
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the wrong guy and someone else got You know, it sounds like it was
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more that kind of stuff which is fixable, which you know, I mean
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the offensively. I don't think anyone walked away from week one feeling like,
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well this I feel great about, you know how I was doing offensive line.
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But it sounds like it's a little bit encouraging that that may be solvable
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issues over the next week or two before you get to the never end game.
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I think it's encouraging that Josh Friar graded out of Champion. It's not
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encouraging that Donovan Jackson or Matt Jones did not. You know. But as
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Ye said, these are all fixable problems. That part of the issue was,
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he said they were fifty percent efficiency of fifty percent on a third and
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fourth and short and that's I mean, that's going to be very difficult to
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overcome. And that's why they had to start throwing the ball on short yardage
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and he said, we don't want to live like that. You have to
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be able to run the ball, as we've said many many times, justin
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fry wanting to run the ball when everybody knows it's coming. They haven't been
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able to do that yet, and they are trying different ways to do that
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with twenty two personnel with two backs, two tight ends, with three tight
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ends, you know, so they're trying some different things and that's that will
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continue as they figure out exactly what they do and what they do best.
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And but yeah, overall the offensive line will get better. But you would
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you would have been much happier to see your two veteran guards, your two
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potential all Big ten guards grading out as champions. And Josh Fryer is not
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a first time starter, but this is a first time you know, where
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he's the entering the year as the starter. You get three guys who are
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in that boat, he and Josh Simmons and Carson Hinzman and only Fryer as
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him engine graded as a champion, but him has been graded out. The
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official quote was quote not bad close quote on Hintsman Day said for the first
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road game at Center, he thought called called a decent game. You know,
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a few things that were a little funky, but now you can focus
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on, you know, getting this getting that stuff right. That's another one
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where Okay, I think the big picture focus on right now needs to be
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on it's not there right now. No one should expect it to be there
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right now with a red shirt freshman for first time starter Center. That's not
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It needs to be there for you know, used to at least be better
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for Notre Dame, and it needs to be there when you're facing Penn State,
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when you're going up to Michigan. It's all it's all you know,
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is encouraging the right word, is it? You know, it's it feels
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like it's sort of on track to be solid by the time, not spectacular,
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but solid by the time that it really needs to be. Well,
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I think for it to be encouraging, like we've seen the baseline now,
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so now now you can if it's not going up, then there's no there's
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no encouraging aspect to it, I would say, but you would if it
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doesn't go up this week, then then you've got some issues. And so
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I fully expected to come up this week and then but what does that mean?
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Yeah, this is one of those weeks where I don't think you're going
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to see anything proven to be fixed. You could see proven to not be
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fixed and proven to be a concern. We're okay, now it's a concern.
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I think you've got you know, this is this is a little bit
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like the first practice of the fall, where okay, we have our first
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data point and now you sort of see where the trajectory goes from there.
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You can't draw too many hard and fast conclusions from that first game, that
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first practice of the spring, that first practice of the fall, but now
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you kind of know where it is and okay, now you'll see where it
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goes from there. One thing that was a really interesting data point from that
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first week was Chip training, who you know, lining up not at the
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back of the eye formation, So that makes him a fullback, except Randa
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says he's not. He's in a fullback. He's a big running back.
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There's a lot you can do with that, really, really creates stress on
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the defense. He's someone where it feels like depending on how this may be
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one of the assumptions that they were making with the with the team that didn't
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pan out the way they wanted to, where you have you know, if
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the line looks a certain way, then you know one type of running back
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versus another might be a better fit for that line. Yeah. I think
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everybody was impressed by what they saw from him, and I started to think
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about here's a thirty year old reference for you. Remember Raymond Harris played some
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fullback, played some running back in Ohio State, had a couple of nicknames.
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One was the Ultra Back, the other was the Quiet Storm Chip Train
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and played at Arizona State for a bit. So how about this, how
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about the desert Storm. I think they also used that sometime in the early
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college that might might be taken, might might be taken. But as we
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said on one of the recent episodes, I think maybe the reaction like you've
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got a budding fan favorite here with Chip training because of the things that he
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can do, the things he's willing to do, and the different skill set
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that he has, and you know, it's it's been He's come a long
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way from being a kick returner that we were kind of excited to see that
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never really materialized. And then where would they have been without him last year
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at running back and now finally kind of realizing this lifelong dream of being a
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Buckeye and he's gonna end up probably being pretty valuable. Yeah, he does.
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He does seem like he's gonna the likelihood that he's playing a significant role
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on this team. However you want to measure that snaps or carries or yards
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or whatever. Feels like that. That's a number that had kind of trended
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up. I think the defense is maybe trending up a little bit at this
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point as well. We had sort of wondered, you know, last week,
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Jim Noles had this kind of like throwaway line where he talked about,
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you know, week one, it's like, oh boy, you know,
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you have no idea what you're gonna get again, you can face the triple
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option, it was like. And then they faced a triple option, and
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so it was like, did they know this was coming or And the answer
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was no. He was asked, how many, you know, how many
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snaps did you play, you know, practice against a triple option? Last
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week? And he's kind of laughed and said, like five. But then
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they dealt with it. And Indiana is not the most talented or explosive offense
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they're going to face this year. But if you're looking at the defense on
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the whole, getting thrown a complete curveball and just having to figure it out
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on the field, that was when you look at that, boy, it
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was remarkable how well the defensive lay last week. Yeah, and I completely
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forgot about that line he said last week about the triple option. So but
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the thing that I mean, so we talked about it after the game,
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the fact that they were able to handle this, and we both expected that
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they hadn't done much of it, and you know, obviously not knowing how
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much, you wouldn't expect that to figure out how to do it, to
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do it a bunch against Indiana, Antoine Randall ll is not walking through those
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doors, folks. But what Noel said is that he knows how to stop
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it from up in the box and knows how to defend it. You know
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how to deal with it, but you have to be able to communicate that
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to the players and then the community. The players have to be able to
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actualize what you're telling them, and they did that, and they did it
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very very well, and it's something that is an indicator that you will then
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be able to handle other forms of chaos that he called it like the unknown,
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because especially early in the season, you're always going to face stuff that
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you're not expecting because everybody, this is the biggest game for everybody that you're
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facing, and so they're gonna have to pull out all the stops that sort
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of thing, and that will continue on into the Big Ten as well because
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they have to do something to contend with Ohio State. So this gives some
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evidence that they can handle different things. But as he also said, you
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want to you still want to see how they do against like an actual drop
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back offense that is trying to do normal things, because that that is still
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kind of the mystery, the pass rush, that sort of thing, because
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they didn't really wasn't much of a pass rush because there wasn't much of a
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passing game. So there are some things if you still have to see.
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Talking about Josh Proctor, how he he's a downhill safety, well at some
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point you've got to be a downfield safety as well. Well. Both Ryan
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Day and Jim Knowles when they were asked about Josh Procter talked about, you
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know, well, you know, the talent's been there, you just it's
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been the consistency. And Josh Procter is you know, you know, he's
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like an off speed hitter and lucky, lucky him. They weren't expecting Jamie
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Moyer to be a late career Jamie Moyer to be the opposing team starting pitcher,
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but but there he was, and so okay, well, now now
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you're not going to be facing Jamie Moyer probably a whole lot the rest of
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the season. So can Josh Proctor hit the fastball? And can he be
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consistent when you know, yes, he's great going downhill against a run first
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team, can he do it when they're trying to throw the ball over his
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head and heat? The talent has always been there, we we I mean
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Greg Siano talked glowingly about Josh Procter and that's how long How long ago was
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that? So that's sort of an open question. And then the safety rotation
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on the whole because that was I think the biggest personnel, like, huh
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was you know, Jahade Carter, Malik Hartford, Josh Procter, those three
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guys. We talked about them all last week in the in the lead up
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to the game, I will raise my hand and say, when Josh Procter
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tried it out there for the first play, I was like, really,
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that was not what I was expecting. And then Jahade Carter, who they
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had been talking about as if he was maybe leading the thing through a bunch
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of the fall camp, didn't play a snap on defense. So the safety
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rotation is a little bit weird. And maybe Jahade Carter getting you know,
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slides it behind lath and Ransom at the bandit spot on the boundary side.
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But man, you wonder what that safety rotation is going to look like in
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a couple of weeks, because what is Josh Procter going to look like against
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a more traditional offense, how fast and Blake Hartford get up to speed him?
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And there's a lot to think about that well. And Bryan Day was
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asked if Josh Proctor will continue to start and he's like, yeah, I
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think so, And Jim Knowles said essentially the same thing, but it's a
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week to week thing. What was interesting to me is that they essentially went
23:14
with Proctor over Millie Hartford because this was the first game, and Proctor obviously
23:18
is much more experience than Millie Cartford. So if the reasoning right now was
23:23
because this was the first game, what's going to be does this change in
23:29
week four when it's Notre Dame? When? When does? When does?
23:32
When? Is there enough experience on Millike Hartford's side to no longer have that
23:37
be why he's not out here, because if it's as close as they think,
23:40
you know, I'm seeing Proctor out there and hearing day talk about it,
23:45
You're thinking, well, maybe maybe Hartford won't start at some point,
23:49
But then listening to Knowle's talk about it, it's like, but I still
23:52
think there's a pretty decent chance we see Hartford starting at some point this year.
23:56
Yeah, I think if you're a true freshman and you're going up against
24:00
a guy in his sixth year, and it's close enough that it's a competition
24:04
right now, the learning curve, I mean, you get to a sixth
24:07
point in the sixt year where there's a little bit of a diminishing return as
24:11
compared to the first year, where that learning curve just bent to the vertical
24:14
for a while. Because how often, Tony have we heard guys talk about
24:17
the fact that boy, you know, this time last you know, the
24:18
second year guy. So, boy, this time last year, I had
24:21
no idea what's going on? Well, you figure it out through the course
24:23
of the season. Willie Carford is already at the point where he's got enough
24:26
figured out that they trust him to be out there when the game is not
24:30
you know, this is not a fifty point lead. You trust him to
24:32
be out there when it's I mean, did he play in the first half.
24:34
He might have played, so I didn't really see him in the first
24:38
half. Yeah, but you know he was out there early, you know,
24:41
relatively early in the second half. So that's that to me, is
24:45
an indication that they are already kind of placing him somewhere near the circle of
24:49
trust. And then you're that's only going to get more so as thing goes
24:55
go along, and how much of the thinking is who will be the best
24:59
option December and at this point, you know, you've got to find out
25:03
in September and October. That's so that you know, so that that person
25:07
can eventually be given the opportunity to take over and excel. And maybe maybe
25:12
I just said the same thing about the quarterbacks, but you know, I
25:15
think that one is much more settled. We don't need to revisit that,
25:18
but I do think it's one of those things. Eventually, if he's if
25:22
he's even he's leaving. And you know, the defensive line, I think
25:26
there was a lot of all the defensive line didn't have very many sacks,
25:29
and you know, boys, was it a bad day for the defensive line.
25:32
Jim Knowles talked about the defensive line in terms of you know that they
25:37
yeah, they didn't have a lot of sacks, but man, they impacted
25:40
the run game a lot. And how many zero and one and two yard
25:45
runs Indiana had. That's a defensive line staying home, shedding blocks, making
25:48
plays, not just eating blocks, making plays. Yeah, and that's what
25:53
we talked the last time we talked to the defensive line. It was about
25:56
playing as a unit, not worrying about who got the stats, not worrying
25:59
about anything like that, just doing your job, staying in your lane,
26:02
keeping containing, keeping control, and allowing that process to stop the ball.
26:07
And it did it repeatedly. And Jim Knowles was asking was there anything you
26:11
were unhappy about? And he said, basically, the two things gave up
26:14
a first down on a third and long on a pass play. But also
26:18
you know another one was maybe a linebacker losing gap integrity because of the the
26:22
option that ended up going inside, and like other than that, like if
26:25
you don't have any issues with the defensive line the interior talking about my call
26:33
only getting like twenty seven snaps, he's totally fine with it because of the
26:37
the beating that you're taking inside with the with the with the option game and
26:41
the running game. So you're okay with that plus my call. You want
26:45
him to be able to rush the pass or you want that's what you can
26:47
really get out of him. There's no no passer to brush against Indiana,
26:51
and you want to keep him fresh, obviously, so he was. He's
26:55
been pretty emphatically he's okay with the rotation on a defensive line, talking about
27:00
it earlier in camp, talking about it now. I wonder what happens,
27:03
like in November, when you need somebody to play forty five fifty snaps and
27:07
they only play thirty, if there'll be some you know, some going back
27:11
and forth on the sideline between the defensive coordinator and the defensive line coach,
27:15
or like in a halftime or something like that where it's like, let's get
27:18
the you know, the one a guys out there more and more well,
27:22
And having been on the field last weekend, I can tell you it was
27:26
real more. I think the broadcast said was one hundred and ten degrees on
27:27
the field or something like that. As a gentleman of larger carriage, I
27:33
mean, I can tell you I would function better in the cold than in
27:37
the heat. And I think as a larger gentleman, any interior defensive lineman
27:41
and the offensive lineman is going to function better in the cold than in the
27:47
heat. That's probably the last significant opponent, I mean, really truly significant
27:51
opponent you're going to play in that kind of heat because Notre Dame. You
27:55
know, you've got Western Kentucky in a couple of weeks and okay, it's
27:56
a four o'clock game, and you never know what the weather's gonna be in
27:59
Columbus two weeks out. But you play Notre Dame at night, and then
28:03
you're into October and you're you're not gonna have one hundred and ten degrees in
28:06
the field in October. That's just so you're also trying to keep them healthy.
28:11
You're trying to keep the guys fresh, and you're trying not to run
28:12
guys in the grunk because boy, if you have, you know, you're
28:15
tired and you lose your technique a little bit and you get hurt. Like,
28:18
boy, that's a big problem week one and then you're do you think
28:22
people would be talking about that a little bit? Yeah? I think a
28:23
little bit, just kind of running through other things real quick. I think
28:30
you know, they want to They don't want to hold Davis and Niggenson back
28:33
because you know, he we talked about him on the Buckeye Weekly episode.
28:37
You know, he's so physical. You don't want to you know, you
28:41
got to play within the system. How do you you know, how do
28:44
you balance you want him to be physical, but you don't want him to
28:47
be too physical. Yeah, it was interesting because the question was like how
28:51
do you how do you coach that the physicality and the handsiness, Like what
28:56
are you telling them about things? Like I don't tell anything, Like basically,
28:57
you just let him do what he wants to do. But within the
29:00
realm of technique and the rules, you know, you can't do some certain
29:04
things. But they're not going to try to dial down the physicality. They
29:07
want that. They like that attitude. I think everybody when you have that
29:11
in the room, that kind of just it spreads to everybody else. And
29:15
so you've got that, You've got the competition that he has brought to that
29:18
room as well. We expected the corners to play well and they did that.
29:22
And and you know, Knowles seems pretty pretty dark happy right now with
29:26
them, and nothing he can say he's happy. He said he has a
29:29
cold heart, and you know that sort of thing. Nothing can warm his
29:32
heart. But you know, he may have been lying. Went from a
29:36
defensive coordinator named Grine to a defensive coordinator with the heart of the green here
29:41
at Ohio State. All right, let's go to Kevin real quick. He
29:44
has we have some user, question, listener, viewer, whatever, you
29:48
know, questions from the people. Yes, Yeack on twenty two overreaction or
29:52
good take steep Day says Florida State will win the national championship. Overreaction or
29:56
good take, Florida State will win the National Championship. I think Florida State,
30:00
I mean, that was impressive. It was that was impressive. They're
30:04
going to be in a position because boy howdy, does the acc look winnable?
30:07
All of a sudden, I think the question is going to be do
30:11
they have the depth because you've got you've got your top line talent. If
30:15
Jordan Travis goes down, are you just done done? Do they have the
30:18
talent the depth of talent to survive a couple injuries if they happened late in
30:23
the season and then you got to win a playoff game without a couple of
30:26
starters, that would be I think my biggest concern there because that was impressive.
30:30
No, I loved everything I saw. Just imagine them with Travis Hunter,
30:34
who was one time committed to them, that would have been impressive as
30:37
well. But yeah, they were. They were everything that people had been
30:41
saying they were going to be, and maybe time to start believing a little
30:44
bit. In Florida State, Yep, wing Man tend Are you at all
30:49
concerned about our kick and punt coverages? It's one of my biggest concerns considering
30:53
that we have a special team's dedicated coach, So concerns about the kick and
30:57
punt coverages for Ohio State. How big of a concern is that for you?
31:02
Well, I mean, let's it's a they didn't do a great job
31:06
on Saturday for the most part, you let up some returns. There's a
31:10
block in the back in there. As we said after the game, anytime
31:12
a kicker and a punter are making a tackle in a game, that's not
31:15
good. And so it's not a concern until it happens repeatedly, until it
31:21
becomes a trend. At this point, you just you can chock it up
31:26
as an anomaly, but this is it's not an anomaly if it's the only
31:29
game. So I think it's something to keep an eye on for sure.
31:33
If you gave Ryan a magic wand and said you can fix one problem on
31:37
this team, I don't think that's the top of the list. I don't.
31:41
I think the offensive line is probably the top of the list. Quarterback
31:45
might be second, just to make everyone stop asking him about the quarterbacks.
31:51
Maybe safety. I mean, I think there's a couple of spots, because
31:55
that's one of those things that it's not going to matter and until it really
31:59
matters, and you know, that's just like one play a year, it's
32:01
like, oh, boy, that's it. Boy, it really matters.
32:05
And I think the decent punt return came on the side everybody was blasting punts
32:08
that way. The Indiana punter was blasting punchers from right to left from the
32:15
press box and some outkicking of the coverage I think going on in there.
32:20
Then that's just something you you address and you adjust. Yeah, YEA offered
32:27
the chance to fire the cannon and where the Revolutionary War uniform? Yes,
32:30
yes, yes, yes, absolutely, come on, Yeah do I get
32:36
to be the old guy with the plastic rim glasses. I would just wait
32:40
for the moment where as people are walking by, like who do I want
32:43
to scare the crap out of and then we can lure them in and then
32:46
you just, yeah, you light the cannon. Now. I don't know
32:52
how often they're going to get to do it this year. How often do
32:54
they ever get to do it? Not very but yeah, and then they
32:59
play Northwestern and completely annihilated Northwestern and they fire it off at the beginning of
33:05
the game when they run out after each score I think after each touchdown NPA
33:09
two, so that would have been seven plus the one before the game plus
33:14
I think one at halftime eight and then end of the game nine. That
33:17
might be a school record. The best is the low key best part of
33:22
being those guys is getting to yell at people who walk in front of the
33:24
cannon they have like big tape things around it because they don't you know,
33:29
it's not like they're shooting an actual cannonball out of there. That's not why
33:31
the student sections empty. It's but you know, the the percussive force or
33:37
concussive force, whatever it is that comes out of there, they don't want
33:40
you walking in front of it, even though, you know, even if
33:42
they're not obviously going to be shooting it off. But I have heard them
33:45
yell at people with just a really condescending uh, you know, it's a
33:51
cannon. You don't want to walk in front of it. And you know
33:52
that that I think would be the secret best part of being a cannon guy.
33:55
I still I don't understand the connection. Uh. Well, a lot
34:00
of the Revolutionary War stuff happened out in that area. Uh And if you
34:06
were from the East coast, you I can tell you that every town out
34:10
there has a George Washington slept here, kind of like, oh, here's
34:15
the historic in where George Washington slept one time, and here's the end.
34:19
You know, how much of it is legitimate, I don't know, But
34:21
there was a lot of Revolutionary war stuff happening. The Germans had a rather
34:24
un sorry, the Hessians had a rather unpleasant Christmas not far from Rutgers.
34:29
At one point, if you remember your history, well, I mean you
34:31
can remember your present, because there's not a lot of pleasant winners around there
34:35
now. Either Ohio State honor this year by lining single file and holding up
34:40
that number. Who should Ohio State honor by lining up single file and holding
34:49
up that number? I mean, my mind immediately goes to Nikki Sulua just
34:54
because that's the you know, well, you need you need, you need
35:00
to work together. It's team Mark Tony. That is ten digits, So
35:02
I guess you can figure it out. Yeah, I don't. I don't
35:06
know, Tony. That seems like somebody that would be so ridiculous to do
35:08
that. I can't fathom anyone doing it. What about you? What you
35:14
would do? Instead of the train formation, you just do like the the
35:16
lowercase I formation, you know, and do something like that. And then
35:21
instead of like signaling a number, you would just have whoever doff a cap.
35:24
Oh that's that's smart. Yeah, but then they would have to leave
35:27
the field for taking their helmet off. Man, it was such a good
35:30
plan right up until you brought that up, and then now now it's like,
35:34
well it turns out that won't work. All right, Well, I
35:37
think we have we've hit our We've hit the point where we're going to be
35:40
asked to leave the building and just a little bit because someone else is going
35:44
to be in here. I'm gonna guess they'll have a football practice in here
35:45
a little bit and some other some other sports practicing in here, and make
35:50
sure a little bit later on today. So we're going to wrap it up
35:52
right now. But thank you guys all for joining us live. If you
35:54
were watching live, make sure you hit that thumbs up for us that helps
35:58
other folks find this show later. And if you were listening to this later
36:00
on a podcast platform of choice, we would appreciate a five start writing review
36:05
on this and any other of the Buckeye Huddle shows that you enjoy. Tony
36:08
and I just dropped a new episode of Buckeye Weekly on Tuesday, looking at
36:14
the things that we learned rewatching the Ohio State Indiana game. Because you always
36:16
miss stuff watching live, especially in person and not on TV. So you
36:22
get a little bit of a different angle, a little bit of a different
36:23
insight into things, so you'll hear Tony and I are talking about a bunch
36:25
of stuff. Some of it will probably make you mad. That's okay.
36:29
Everyone seems to be the theme of the season, but that's okay. Season
36:31
is season is young, season is just getting started and getting to be more
36:35
fun. Should be fun this weekend as well, with the Buckeyes hosting Youngstown
36:38
State at noon at the Horseshoe. There is real quickly. We should let
36:44
people know about the traffic stuff. Cannon Drive is closed, same as last
36:51
year. Make sure you download if you're going to the game, make sure
36:53
you save your tickets on your phone to your Apple wallet app or whatever.
37:00
I guess. Sometimes you'll have the issues coming into the stadium, so you
37:02
save it in your Apple wallet or whatever your whatever the Google equivalent is.
37:06
I don't know Google wallet, google wallet, okay, well pretty pretty derivative
37:12
if you ask me. But that's okay. Save it to your Apple wallet
37:14
or Google wallet or whatever wallet you I don't think your regular wallet works,
37:17
but whatever digital wallet you have, save your tickets there so you don't have
37:22
issues coming into the stadium. But other than that, arrive early, enjoy
37:25
Buckeye huddle and we'll talk to you guys tomorrow