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Ross Fulton Analysis: Jim Knowles' Ohio State Defense Brings The Heat · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Friday, October twentieth, I'm your host,
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  Tom Moore. The Penn State game is tomorrow, the game against Michigan in
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  thirty six days. On yesterday's show, we talked to our buddy Ross Fulton
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  all about the Ohio State offense and what we learned from the Purdue game,
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  what it might mean moving forward for Penn State. And now today we're gonna
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  be looking at the Ohio State defense. Some common themes there, some generally
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  positive news overall, It's undoubtedly welcome for Buckeye fans this time of year.
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  And on yesterday show we talked about a someone who seems like it might be
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  a little bit of a breakout possibility, Indllan Hayden. Now we're going to
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  start Ross on the defensive side of the ball with someone else who seems like
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  he might be taking on a bigger role than expected for the Buckeyes right now.
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  First of all, we're talking about we're talking about Cody Simon, and
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  it feels like he is taking on a much bigger role in the Ohio State
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  linebacker room than you might have thought just a few weeks ago. Yeah,
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  I think I tweeted during the game that I felt like Simon had taken over
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  the position, which maybe is jumping the gun a bit, but he seems
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  to be taking increasing snaps away from steel Chambers, And you know, I
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  doubt that, I doubt it ever fully happens that steel Chambers is in playing.
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  I do think Chambers is probably a little bit better against the pass than
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  Cody Simon is, but I do think that Simon definitely adds something as a
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  run defender from that position, particularly in filling holes. And you know,
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  this play is a good example. Jim Knowles is funny, after like the
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  last couple of weeks of talking about like how he's you know, toned down
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  bringing pressure really amped it up this game. Uh, there's a lot of
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  bletzing, and this is this is one example of it. This It looks
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  like this is a double a gap linebacker hot blitz, so you're playing like
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  three deep and kind of a two under underneath it with eyes and he uses
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  a couple of times against on first intend to defend the run. But again,
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  I mean, I think this is just a good example. So even
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  putting aside, like they can continue to expand the package and we're going to
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  talk about another example of that next, but like more and more volume and
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  what they're doing coverage wise and scheme wise. You know, I think there's
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  multiple examples of like Simon coming downhill and filling a hole. So like to
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  the extent you know, we talked about last week there was concern about linebackers
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  filling you know, Simon definitely brings that element to his game in terms of,
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  you know, being able to take on a block and make a play
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  against the run in the hole. All right, so the last play we
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  looked at that was Cody Simon kind of helping make the play and then TYLERK
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  Williams kind of got the glory on that one. Got to stand up and
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  stand up and dance a little bit. Next one, this is a Taileek
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  Williams play. He had a real nice game against Pretty on Saturday. It
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  feels like you're finally seeing what Ohio State fans have been waiting to see.
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  Ninety one has in fact been freed and it is paying off real well for
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  Ohio State. Right now, let's run us through this next one. Ross.
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  Yeah, I mean, I guess the benefit of I guess it's probably
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  self evident that if you're playing very good defense, you're gonna have some very
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  good players, you know, and it would be hard for me like to
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  pick between you know, j T. Twomloo, Denzel Burke, you know
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  both Lathan Rams and Josh Proctor playing really well. Uh, you know,
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  Tommy Eichenberg obviously, but like Tyler Williams has been very good and like he
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  he is a load for teams to deal with inside but against the run of
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  the pass. And obviously you know, he had a couple of these backdowns
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  and he was close to a couple more in terms of in addition to other
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  times where he just like flat made the play, you know, like they
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  do have times. We're gonna talk about how they sometimes are playing late in
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  the box, uh to defend the pass, and there are times where they
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  you know, that's gotten them occasionally gets to run. But there's other times
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  where you know, Williamson Hall just control the lot of scrimmage and or they're
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  able to get away with it because their defensive tackles are making plays. But
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  this is also interesting schematically, so again talking about expanding the package show here,
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  Ohio State runs a two deep four nder his own blitz, so they're
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  bringing five, they're gonna play a Cover two behind it with just but with
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  just four defenders. So again you're like you're also seeing the continued evolution of
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  the scheme. Like it was not like Maryland where they mix up coverages a
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  ton. They played a lot more Cover one as a percentage of what they
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  were doing against Purdue. But you still saw, you know, we talked
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  about hot we talked about this cover too, We talked you know, you
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  saw still some Cover two, just regular cover two, some Cover three,
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  so a little bit of brackets. So again, like it's they are a
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  much more very defense this year, which is just I think certainly helping them
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  keep opposing quarterbacks off balance and helping their you know, then pressure get home
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  and make an impact. Well here's another neck coming up next is another play
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  where pressure got home. And this time it was not J. T.
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  Twomloo or Tyler Williams or Denzel Berg or Timely Eikenberg. It was Jack Sawyer.
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  And that's this is one that I think a lot of Ohio State fans
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  of a going win, is it going to be Jack Sawyer's turn? And
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  then it was, uh, what happened? What happened here? That helped
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  him, helped him get home on this one. Yeah. Again, So
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  another example of what they were doing this game, which is a lot of
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  pressure. So another this is a six man cover one blitz. So they're
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  bringing bringing both linebackers. You know, you saw them again, they bring
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  Latham Ransom, particularly when perdu got inside the red zone. Gymnles loves using
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  the boundary safety blitz with Ransom filling against the run. But like you know,
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  hey to Sawyer and I thought JT's credit too, Like they seemed,
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  you know, maybe they were given a little bit more freedom in terms of
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  the pass rush, uh, you know, in terms of like a two
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  way go or or ability to you know, make moves on the opposing tackle
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  because you see a little bit more of that, and you know, it's
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  sort of one of those things I think once you start making a play,
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  it sort of you know runs downhill and start guys start getting a little bit
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  more comfortable and a little looser, and you know, I think the defense
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  is feeding off the energy as well, Like you can see the confidence like
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  even you know, as we'll talk about even when a team makes it drive
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  like last year, it was like as soon as the team got inside the
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  ten yard line, they were going to score a touchdown. Like Ohio States
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  red zone defense is really poor like this year obviously, like the you know,
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  the goal line stand at the end of the first half is a great
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  example, but like repeatedly they do, like even if they give up a
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  few first downs, they you know, they're not giving up explosive plays and
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  then they're making it difficult to score points. Well, earlier you mentioned,
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  you know that they were kind of playing down a body at times, and
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  and this is part of the two minute drill that led up to that goal
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  line stand. We'll get to the we'll get to that in a minute,
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  but first, you know, what what do you mean when you're talking about
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  that playing them playing down a body or being a little light. Yeah,
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  so you know when you're just you just don't have enough defenders to play the
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  run, right, So this happened a couple of times to them on this
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  drive. And so part of me, including this point is like it shouldn't
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  be a cost for concern. Like you know, Perdue did have a couple
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  of chunk run plays. They usually happened in this sort of situation where you
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  know, so so Purdue here kind of caught them. You know, they
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  they run outside zone, a split outside zone to their trip side in Ohio,
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  State is rotating down to like a cover one opposite it, and so
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  there's just no safety available on that side. So you've got you know,
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  your interior six that are accounting for a gap, but there's no edge defender
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  because they they're lacking a force player and that you know, opens up some
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  opportunities. And that happened a couple of times where they would they would rotate.
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  I mean, I think Purdue was getting them somewhat with the split zone
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  action and cover one and like that'll be you know, something to watch and
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  you know, going forward, particularly, I'm sure Penn State will be taking
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  notes and trying to do so. I doubt all have to stay plays quite
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  as much cover one consistently against Penn State as they did against Purdue. But
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  like, nonetheless, like in terms of like trying to catch your rotation the
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  opposite way, prdue a couple of nice ones of those. But again,
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  you know, so you're just you know, it's not a matter of getting
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  gash or like guys getting control of the line scrimmage. You're just you know,
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  you don't have a forced defender available, all right, And so you
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  mentioned split zone and Purdue having success with that, and so if you run
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  split zone at the one, you figure, how hard can it be to
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  pick up one yard ross? Come on, it's one yard? I can
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  I can stretch my arms that far, but they my hands would be out
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  of the frame. So I'm not going to do it. But you know,
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  if you know this is this is a this is a play that I
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  guess going into the half. You know, the game was more or less
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  out of hand. It was twenty to nothing or whatever it was at halftime,
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  and so it doesn't really matter, but also it kind of matters.
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  This is one of these sort of point of pride things. I think Buckey's
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  get a really nice goal line stand against Purdue Bullet, the one that Purdue
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  somehow ends up not scoring with a little help from the special teams. But
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  how did what did Ohio State do to hold strong in this goal line stand?
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  Yeah? And again I mean I think as we as a reference earlier,
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  like I do think this shows like sort of where the psychological energy and
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  mindset of the Ohio State defenses right now in terms of their confidence and like
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  they're sort of you know, even when their backs up against the ball,
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  they're still making plays. But like also like this kind of further emphasize my
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  point that like you know, Purdue hit a couple of like twenty yard runs,
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  it was largely at numbers issue like when Ohio State wants to play the
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  run, like they can play the run. This is really well done.
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  So like you know, we talked before about how you have to fall back
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  as linebackers at the second level against split zone, and so you see that
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  executed really well here between Tommy Eikenberg and Josh Proctor essentially acting as a you
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  know, a sam linebacker and Cody Simon as well, and so they see
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  the block, they fall back and they you know, Ikenberg meets the running
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  back in the hole. And so again, like I it makes sense,
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  I think like from a bigger picture perspective that like that Ohio State is at
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  times going with the light box because both of their safeties and really all three
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  I mean, if you want to include sunny styles as well, are big
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  guys that like are very comfortable coming downhill against the run. And so I
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  think you like you know, you you know, you have that sort of
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  in your back pocket and you know that they can. They can do that
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  from depth to and so you know better to make sure you're not giving up
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  explicit plays in the back end. But like that, you know, this
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  is sort of an example of like when they do equate numbers and this is
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  I think why they're being pretty effective as a short yardage and goalie defense right
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  now. Like you know, whether it be the fourth down stops we've talked
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  about in previous weeks or here, like they can you know, between the
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  defensive tackles and the second level, like they can definitely you know, make
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  it difficult for an offense when they want to. All right, Well that
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  was that covers the defensive side of the ball. We talked about the offense
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  yesterday. We're gonna be talking more about the Penn State side of things moving
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  forward. Have a little bonus show for you with Ross coming up of course
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  at YouTube dot com, slash Bucket Huddle and of course at pucke Hull as
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  well. That's where you can talk to Ross, you can talk to our
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  other exes and O's experts there on the huddle board. That is members only,
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  So if you want to be a part of that, you got to
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  sign up at bucke Huddle dot com. This seems like a real good time
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  to do that, because boy, it is going to be an eventful next
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  month or so for the Ohio State football team, heading into the Penn State
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  game, the Wisconsin game, and then November. You know who's coming at
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  the end of November. That's all coming up very very soon. We are
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  geting getting pretty close to the end of the college football season already somehow halfway
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  through the regular season. I don't know how that's possible, but a great
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  place to celebrate the second half of the regular season with us and possibly beyond
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  there will be a postseas on some sort of high state is Bowl eligible.
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  We'll see where they end up going. But you can be a part of
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  all of it there at buckey huddle dot com and of course YouTube dot com
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  slash Buckeye Huddle. That will do it for today. Thank you guys all
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  for joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.