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Ross Fulton Analysis: How Matt Patricia Combines Complex Looks & Simple Systems · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Tuesday, June second, I'm
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  Speaker 1: your host tom Or the ball State game in ninety
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  Speaker 1: five days, the game against Michigan in one hundred and
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  Speaker 1: eighty three days. We are sponsored by Jeff Rubies of Columbus,
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  Speaker 1: Just go to Jeff Ruby dot com slash Columbus, check
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  Speaker 1: out the menu and make a reservation today. Right, we're
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  Speaker 1: welcoming in Ross Fulton, the ex's and o's guru from
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  Speaker 1: Buckeyeinsider dot com. Ross, we're talking about an article written
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  Speaker 1: by Cody Alexander. That is someone that we've talked about
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  Speaker 1: a bunch on the show over the years. He just
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  Speaker 1: wrote a look back at Matt Patricia's first season at
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  Speaker 1: Ohio State and what he did on defense called complex
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  Speaker 1: Looks Simple Systems. And I will put a link in
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  Speaker 1: the commons on YouTube as well as in the description
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  Speaker 1: of the podcast. And if I failed to do that,
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  Speaker 1: go ahead and yell at me in the comments and
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  Speaker 1: then I will put the links in there. But Ross,
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  Speaker 1: what does complex looks simple systems. What does that mean
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  Speaker 1: and then how does that really sort of play out
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  Speaker 1: on the field.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I highly recommend all of Cody.
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  Speaker 3: Articles and material, But as you said, this is a
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  Speaker 3: great article about Ohio States on its first yearner Mount Patricia,
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  Speaker 3: and I think it plays out in the sense of,
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  Speaker 3: you know, I think what Cody means by that is
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  Speaker 3: the schemes are relatively simple and straightforward for the defense
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  Speaker 3: to execute. Like we'll get into that, but you know,
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  Speaker 3: a single high cover three base scheme is certainly not
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  Speaker 3: something new that's been around for a long long time
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  Speaker 3: in football. But the ways that Patricia was able to
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  Speaker 3: move around the pieces and mix up the front, mix
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  Speaker 3: up the ways that Ohio State ran Cover three and
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  Speaker 3: sort of move some key pieces around, you know, namely
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  Speaker 3: his two linebackers in sunny styles and RBL recent particular,
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  Speaker 3: and then Catala downs as the safety and the nickel
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  Speaker 3: and and sort of move, you know, and rotate the
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  Speaker 3: coverage in the front. It made it so that we
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  Speaker 3: that it was looked complex for the opposing offense, but
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  Speaker 3: kept the scheme for the players on defense relatively simple
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  Speaker 3: to execute.
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  Speaker 1: All right, So let's we're going to just go level
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  Speaker 1: by level here, and we're going to start up front.
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  Speaker 1: That's where it all starts. It always starts up front.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to start there. We have talked about the
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  Speaker 1: Penny front a bunch, but for people who maybe don't
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  Speaker 1: remember or who just have kind of always heard you
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  Speaker 1: say it and not really understood what it is, explain
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  Speaker 1: what the Penny front is and what them that allowed
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  Speaker 1: them to do last year.
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  Speaker 3: The Penny front is a odd five to one front,
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  Speaker 3: so it's used in nickel defense. So I guess we
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  Speaker 3: should start out even more basic level. You Ohio State,
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  Speaker 3: as we discussed, as a majority nickel team, So they
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  Speaker 3: have four linemen, two linebackers and five defensive backs. Obviously
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  Speaker 3: they sometimes respond to twelve personnel or two tight ends
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  Speaker 3: with a third linebacker, but you know, putting that aside
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  Speaker 3: base nichol and so if you think about your traditional
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  Speaker 3: odd front, you know, like a three four defense, you
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  Speaker 3: have two linebackers, and so the term penny came from
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  Speaker 3: the fact that you only have one linebacker off the ball,
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  Speaker 3: so single linebacker, hence penny. But really what it was
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  Speaker 3: for High State is you know they essentially route, so
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  Speaker 3: same personnel again to the simple part but rotated one
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  Speaker 3: linebacker down as an edge defender and played a head
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  Speaker 3: up nose guard. So you know, as Cody discussed in
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  Speaker 3: the article, that most often was Rvel Reese who would
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  Speaker 3: bump down to play to the weak or boundary edge.
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  Speaker 3: So think about you know, away from the tight end
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  Speaker 3: or to the to the short side of the field.
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  Speaker 3: And then you as I said, you have a you
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  Speaker 3: have a straight up over the center nose tackle who
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  Speaker 3: was last year's Kad McDonald. And we can talk about
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  Speaker 3: the real bits of that for the penny going forward.
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  Speaker 3: And then you know, most of the time Sunny Styles
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  Speaker 3: was the off ball middle linebacker. But as Cody discussed
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  Speaker 3: the lineback in the article, while as I said, the
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  Speaker 3: principal formation or look was with Rvel Reese as the
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  Speaker 3: walk up boundary, you know that could be rotated right,
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  Speaker 3: so they could rotate it towards the field. They could
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  Speaker 3: have study Styles on the edge the field and Rvel
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  Speaker 3: Reese off the ball. They could play Reese to the
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  Speaker 3: to the white side of the field, and then they.
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  Speaker 2: Could use Caleb Downs a lot in the box.
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  Speaker 3: So that essentially from you know, that five to one
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  Speaker 3: look could could become a five to two. And so
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  Speaker 3: you know, Cody says that according to his stats, Ohio
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  Speaker 3: State was in the penny front the majority of the
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  Speaker 3: snaps that you know, that seems a little high to me,
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  Speaker 3: but I would say that it was as certainly about
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  Speaker 3: as frequent as your standard you know, for two. Look
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  Speaker 3: that we've come to traditionally associate with Ohio State over
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  Speaker 3: the last decade or so with two off ball linebackers.
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  Speaker 1: One of the questions you always get asked about a
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  Speaker 1: defensive coordinator is how aggressive are they? How often are
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  Speaker 1: they blitzing? And last year, at least according to his numbers,
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  Speaker 1: they didn't blitz as much as you might have thought,
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  Speaker 1: but they got a little bit creative. He used an
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  Speaker 1: interesting phrase, passive pressure. So what is passive pressure? What
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  Speaker 1: does that look like in the Matt Patricia defense.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree with Cody. I mean I think
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  Speaker 3: that they were Patricia was pretty you know, sparing in
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  Speaker 3: his blitz schemes. As Cody talks about, most of the
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  Speaker 3: time they were five man pressures and so you know,
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  Speaker 3: we can we can get into the coverages here in
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  Speaker 3: a second, but most of the time it was you know,
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  Speaker 3: five man look with a cover three fire zone behind it.
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  Speaker 3: So if your standard cover three is three deep and
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  Speaker 3: four under defenders, you're playing three deep and three under,
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  Speaker 3: so again like to that simple you know, overarching like
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  Speaker 3: complex but simplified. You can bring a fifth rusher from
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  Speaker 3: different angles, but you're still sort of playing the same
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  Speaker 3: basic cover scheme for the defense again, like you know,
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  Speaker 3: as with the Penny front. And I think that, like
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  Speaker 3: you know, going back to the fact that they had
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  Speaker 3: Kate McDonald's nose tackle and like to play that like
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  Speaker 3: head up over the center and two gap, I think,
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  Speaker 3: you know, one of the outstanding questions going for next
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  Speaker 3: year is like will they have be able to do that,
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  Speaker 3: Like will their their you know, nose tackles are particularly
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  Speaker 3: they're one techniques to be able to fill that role.
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  Speaker 3: I think that it may be the case this year
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  Speaker 3: that Ohio State needs to increase its pressure schemes in particular,
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  Speaker 3: like more use of sim pressures where you know you're
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  Speaker 3: bringing bringing forward but you're dropping a guy off and
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  Speaker 3: you know playing his zone covers behind it, or you know,
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  Speaker 3: just bringing a bigger variety because I just think they're
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  Speaker 3: gonna maybe need to generate some more pressure than just
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  Speaker 3: relying on you know their defensive ends and Rvel rees
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  Speaker 3: to do it organically. Uh. But you know, as Cody
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  Speaker 3: talks about, like even last year, you saw a lot
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  Speaker 3: of in particular, what Patricia liked to do is bring
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  Speaker 3: either like a nickel pressure from the field side or
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  Speaker 3: bring Caleb downs on a boundary pressure from the boundary
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  Speaker 3: side and then drop a defensive end out. And so
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  Speaker 3: that's where you get that you know, third uh coverage,
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  Speaker 3: you know third underneath coverage.
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  Speaker 2: Man. So that's kind of what I passive.
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  Speaker 3: You know, you're, yes, you're bringing five, but you're still
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  Speaker 3: playing as a zone behind it.
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  Speaker 2: That that's you know, fairly protective all right then.
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  Speaker 1: And on the back end he had Cody had really
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  Speaker 1: interesting breakdown of sort of the percentages of different coverages
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  Speaker 1: that that they ran last year. One thing that really
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  Speaker 1: jumped out to me is Matt Patricia had a reputation
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  Speaker 1: for using one kind of coverage in the NFL, and
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  Speaker 1: then that was not really what you saw the majority
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  Speaker 1: of the time in year one at Ohio State.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Cody drew an interesting uh you know,
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  Speaker 3: parallel or connection between the two that I really thought
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  Speaker 3: fully through because, as Cody said in the NFL, like Patricia,
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  Speaker 3: particularly with the Lions when he's a head coach, played
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  Speaker 3: a ton of Cover one man and so you know,
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  Speaker 3: as we've talked about, there's been times where Ohio State
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  Speaker 3: has been a heavy Cover one team and say you
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  Speaker 3: have your single middle of the field safety and then
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  Speaker 3: you know you're playing Cover one across. But so what
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  Speaker 3: what Patrician is basically substitute in doing that with Cover three.
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  Speaker 2: So a lot of the same principles there.
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  Speaker 3: Right, you still have a middle of the field safety,
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  Speaker 3: but now you're just playing a zone instead of man,
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  Speaker 3: and so you're having you know, your corners or each
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  Speaker 3: have a deep third that deep middle of the third
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  Speaker 3: player and then you have four underneath defenders. And you
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  Speaker 3: know a big part of that by plants a lot
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  Speaker 3: of zone and Cover three. What it allow of high
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  Speaker 3: states you do again like to pick up on that
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  Speaker 3: complex like looks concept, like you could rotate the coverage
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  Speaker 3: a lot. And so we've talked about this a lot,
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  Speaker 3: particularly like going forward with how Ohio State approached the
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  Speaker 3: transfer portal, like wanting you know, Earl Little to be
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  Speaker 3: that nickel and then have you know, Jalen Claim bumped
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  Speaker 3: down to play downs role and then you have to
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  Speaker 3: tarrymore and the like to be more of that like
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  Speaker 3: middlefield safety. You have the ability and that's what like
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  Speaker 3: Cody uses the term fulk crum from last year to
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  Speaker 3: like push the coverage. So like there'd be a lot
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  Speaker 3: of times last year, as you know, we'd see Lorenzo
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  Speaker 3: styles as who is the field nickel like rotate back
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  Speaker 3: to be a deep safety and Caleb downs come down
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  Speaker 3: to the boundary side or you can rotate to the
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  Speaker 3: field and have downs come back. So it allows you
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  Speaker 3: to shift so even within like your base cover three look,
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  Speaker 3: you can play you know, Cody has some example this,
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  Speaker 3: like you could play cover three bus so you're like
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  Speaker 3: playing rotating to the weak side, you can rotate to
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  Speaker 3: the strong side. And so you see a lot of
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  Speaker 3: this and again that gets to like some of these transfers,
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  Speaker 3: whether it's as I said, little or you know, bring
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  Speaker 3: any Christian Allegro from Wisconsin to sort of play that
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  Speaker 3: rec role. Like you know, there's again a lot of
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  Speaker 3: focus on these sort of like these you know, edge
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  Speaker 3: or full frum players if you will, to fill those
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  Speaker 3: roles that that Cody Folks is on that article that
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  Speaker 3: allowed Patricia to really kind of rotate the defense one
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  Speaker 3: way or the other.
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  Speaker 1: Kind of touched on this a little bit already, but
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to really just sort of ask it directly.
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  Speaker 1: You've mentioned a bunch of guys who are not there.
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  Speaker 1: You've said Cave McDonald's name a bunch in terms of
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  Speaker 1: the impact up front. You don't have Caleb downs anymore
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  Speaker 1: this year. You don't have RVL reach, you don't have
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  Speaker 1: Sunny Styles. Those are all names that I've heard you say.
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  Speaker 1: Those guys are all gone, and they have certainly a
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  Speaker 1: bunch of new players and a bunch of guys they're
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  Speaker 1: very high on this year. But we know what the
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  Speaker 1: year one defense looked like under Matt Patricia. How much
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  Speaker 1: do you think it's going to change in year two
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  Speaker 1: just because of the different personnel And is there something
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  Speaker 1: that really jumps out as like this is a really
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  Speaker 1: obvious change that I expect them to make year two
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  Speaker 1: based on either the guys who left or the guys
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  Speaker 1: who they brought in.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it'll be interesting because, as I said, like sort
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  Speaker 3: of on the one hand, you don't have that Cave
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  Speaker 3: McDonald giant nose tackle in the middle to this year
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  Speaker 3: technique like you have you know, Will Smith back who
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  Speaker 3: was it was his backup, and you brought in John
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  Speaker 3: Walker and potentially you could play James Smith in there
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  Speaker 3: as well. You know, but it's I will say, it's
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  Speaker 3: like not a traditional like two technique or he's trying
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  Speaker 3: to sort of hold up the center, like Kate McDonald
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  Speaker 3: used a lot of like what we call like a
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  Speaker 3: lag technique, Like he would basically play the if the
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  Speaker 3: center blocked to his right, Let's say, he would take
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  Speaker 3: the backside a gap and the and the defense would
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  Speaker 3: adjust from there. So he like played opposite the way
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  Speaker 3: the center was going. So I think there's ways around
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  Speaker 3: not having him. But on the flip side, I felt
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  Speaker 3: like we talked about this, like their transfer portal moves
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  Speaker 3: really spoke to me that like maybe even leading more
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  Speaker 3: so into the odd front. You know, you have I said,
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  Speaker 3: like a lagro who's able to be like the big body,
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  Speaker 3: like an edge boundary edge linebacker like Reese was. You
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  Speaker 3: have Roussall who's kind of like an uh you know,
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  Speaker 3: more of like a defensive end and outside linebacker hybrid
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  Speaker 3: on the flip side, who can drop.
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  Speaker 2: You know, we were talking about those zone blitzes like
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  Speaker 2: can cover the.
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  Speaker 3: You know, curl flat zone opposite if you're bringing a blitz,
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  Speaker 3: and then we talked about you know, and that allows them.
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  Speaker 2: And then they have both.
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  Speaker 3: James Smith and Edward Houston, so you know the penny front,
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  Speaker 3: and one thing I did mention, you have that nose
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  Speaker 3: and then you have kind of like the two other
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  Speaker 3: defensive tackles, if you will, are sort of what you
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  Speaker 3: might call like a four eye technique, so they're kind
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  Speaker 3: of like lined up on the outside leg of the guard.
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  Speaker 3: And so you could in theory, have you know, James
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  Speaker 3: Smith and Edric Houston on the field at the same
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  Speaker 3: time in each of those roles and get bigger with
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  Speaker 3: like Kenyana Jackson outside and then allegro or you can
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  Speaker 3: get kind of smaller and push Jackson back inside like
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  Speaker 3: he did more last year. So they do have some
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  Speaker 3: flexibility to run that Penny front. So I do think
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  Speaker 3: we'll see more of that. And then you know, as
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  Speaker 3: I said, I think when you look at the the
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  Speaker 3: the back end, like a lot of focus was on
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  Speaker 3: the versatility of the safeties, particularly like having ear a
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  Speaker 3: little who can play in the box but can also
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  Speaker 3: drop back in coverage and so like I think, you know,
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  Speaker 3: when people talk about, you know, wanting the nickel to
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  Speaker 3: cover and man again, like as Cody showed, like honestly,
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  Speaker 3: it's like an overwhelmingly zoned team or they were last year,
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  Speaker 3: and I expect that to can you continue again because
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  Speaker 3: of just the type of guys they were looking for
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  Speaker 3: to play safety. They really want to be able to
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  Speaker 3: disguise the coverage and it's much easier to do that
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  Speaker 3: with this cover three zone shell, you know, and they,
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  Speaker 3: as Cody discussed, like then you mix in some Cover
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  Speaker 3: two to keep you know, offensive off balance, you mix
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  Speaker 3: in some some quarters or you know, quarter.
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  Speaker 2: Quarter half, and so it's just a principally zoned framework.
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  Speaker 2: And we noticed you know, mentioned this as well.
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  Speaker 3: Notice like against Miami when Styles got hurt, they had
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  Speaker 3: then had to play more man because they had to
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  Speaker 3: bump math Tormaine Matthews into nickel, and that really like
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  Speaker 3: cut down a lot of this versatility that Cody discusses
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  Speaker 3: in the article, because when you're you're kind of locked
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  Speaker 3: into where people have to be. All right.
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  Speaker 1: So there you go your first breakdown from Rossfolden X's
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  Speaker 1: and o's guru at Buckeyeinsiders Dot com. If you enjoy
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  Speaker 1: hearing Ross talk about football, you want to talk with
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