Latest / Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning / Ross Fulton Analysis: How Matt Patricia Mixed In New Looks To Shut Down Penn State
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Friday, November seventh, I'm
- 0:03Speaker 1: your host Tom Worthy Perdue game in one day, the
- 0:05Speaker 1: game against Michigan in twenty two days. On today's show,
- 0:08Speaker 1: we're welcoming in Ross Fulton, the ex's and nose guru
- 0:10Speaker 1: at bucke Huddle dot com. And when Ross is on
- 0:12Speaker 1: the show, we're sponsored by jeff Rubies of Columbus, proudly
- 0:15Speaker 1: offering nationally acclaimed USDA Prime Stakes, seafood and sushi, impeccable service,
- 0:20Speaker 1: live entertainment, and an attention to detail that is simply unmatched.
- 0:23Speaker 1: Just go to Jeffrey dot com slash Columbus to check
- 0:26Speaker 1: out the menu and make a reservation. Today, all right, Ross,
- 0:29Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about the Ohio State defense, which
- 0:31Speaker 1: turned in another dominating performance, and we're starting to hit
- 0:35Speaker 1: on some common themes. One of themes we've talked about
- 0:38Speaker 1: a bunch this year is how they've sort of been
- 0:40Speaker 1: mixing up fronts and using that penny front, and that
- 0:43Speaker 1: was something they did once again with great success against
- 0:46Speaker 1: Penn State.
- 0:47Speaker 2: Exactly, we've talked about how they've probably run the penny front,
- 0:51Speaker 2: you know, a quarter to a third of the time.
- 0:53Speaker 2: And that's this five to one look right where you
- 0:55Speaker 2: got three down line men, the two stand up edge guys,
- 0:58Speaker 2: one of which is rbl Reza. Then generally Styles or
- 1:01Speaker 2: could be Payton Pierce is the middle linebacker. And you know, again,
- 1:05Speaker 2: like this play. The reason that the Paining front is
- 1:08Speaker 2: so effective, it's really to defend zone runs. And you know,
- 1:12Speaker 2: a lot of teams based on his own it's frankly
- 1:15Speaker 2: surprising that teams like continue to run it against the
- 1:18Speaker 2: Penny front like they probably should be checking out of
- 1:21Speaker 2: it for this reason, right, and so there's just no
- 1:23Speaker 2: double team. So Edric Houston, even though he's lined up
- 1:27Speaker 2: head up, he uses what's called a lag technique, So
- 1:30Speaker 2: whichever way the center is going to go, he goes
- 1:33Speaker 2: the opposite a gap. So you see that here right,
- 1:35Speaker 2: this is an inside zone to the left, he's going
- 1:37Speaker 2: to take that left a gap. Sonny Styles has the
- 1:40Speaker 2: the other a gap then, and so you just get
- 1:43Speaker 2: a bunch of single blocks, right, and so you can't
- 1:45Speaker 2: like the concept of zone as you're doubling to get
- 1:48Speaker 2: vertical movement up to the second level. We talked about
- 1:50Speaker 2: that with the High State's run game and there's nowhere
- 1:52Speaker 2: to go. And obviously, like Houston is so dominant as
- 1:55Speaker 2: a run defender in this situation, like he instead to
- 1:59Speaker 2: display is the guard backwards? Uh, you know Kenyata Jackson
- 2:03Speaker 2: beats his blog arval Reese like for a linebacker is yeah,
- 2:06Speaker 2: he's probably frankly more effective in this edge roll, like
- 2:09Speaker 2: great use of his hands to disengage, uh and then
- 2:12Speaker 2: make the tackle. But you know, overall, like this penny front. Obviously,
- 2:16Speaker 2: as you said, it's like one of the things that
- 2:17Speaker 2: Matt Patricia has brought to Ohio State this season, and
- 2:20Speaker 2: it's just been so effective at eliminating zone run games.
- 2:25Speaker 1: The Ohio State defense has been so good this year
- 2:27Speaker 1: that when teams find something that seems like it works
- 2:30Speaker 1: a few times, it's like whoa, wha, whoa, wha, whoa,
- 2:32Speaker 1: what what is going on here? He kind of had
- 2:34Speaker 1: that a little bit when Illinois was running some tempo
- 2:36Speaker 1: in the second half against them a few weeks ago,
- 2:39Speaker 1: and then there was this toss play where Penn State
- 2:42Speaker 1: was kind of overloading one side of the line and
- 2:45Speaker 1: with the with lineman and they would just kind of
- 2:47Speaker 1: run this sort of basic cost play and they had
- 2:50Speaker 1: some success with this is you know, this is not
- 2:52Speaker 1: the This did not turn into a tim Biakabatuca game
- 2:54Speaker 1: or anything like that, but it was one of those
- 2:56Speaker 1: things where you saw it work a couple of times
- 2:58Speaker 1: and it was like huh, and then it felt like
- 3:00Speaker 1: they did something to address that later where it sort
- 3:03Speaker 1: of went away.
- 3:04Speaker 2: Yeah, Pencate came out with the opening play of the
- 3:07Speaker 2: game with a variation of this, and you're starting to
- 3:10Speaker 2: see responses right like, as they get more film out there,
- 3:13Speaker 2: some of the similar frankly concepts as Illinoid did in
- 3:16Speaker 2: terms of like using tempo, getting really spread out and
- 3:20Speaker 2: getting like unbalanced, whether that's with like a bunch sets.
- 3:24Speaker 2: Pen Sate sent did some of that to get the
- 3:26Speaker 2: three over two or this I think partially like because
- 3:29Speaker 2: like we were just talking about the Penny front and
- 3:30Speaker 2: what it's good at, like one limitation to the Penny front.
- 3:33Speaker 2: It's a very balanced look. And by that I mean
- 3:36Speaker 2: like if you divide the center, divide the ball in
- 3:39Speaker 2: half through the middle of the center, like you have
- 3:41Speaker 2: the same number of players to each side of the
- 3:44Speaker 2: offensive formation, and then especially if like if you're in
- 3:47Speaker 2: cover three, then you're even more you know, straight down
- 3:50Speaker 2: you got three guys right down the middle, and so
- 3:53Speaker 2: what teams are doing is like they're overloading one side
- 3:55Speaker 2: or the other to force State to adjust. And so
- 3:58Speaker 2: pen Sate kind of did a combo here they run this,
- 4:00Speaker 2: so they have seven offensive linemen on the field. Both
- 4:03Speaker 2: those guys that are sort of in the backfield are
- 4:06Speaker 2: also offensive linemen. They would huddle and then it's called
- 4:09Speaker 2: a muddle huddle. They'd huddle then run to the line
- 4:11Speaker 2: of scrimmage and snap it really quickly, so High State
- 4:14Speaker 2: didn't have time to get adjusted. And you know what
- 4:17Speaker 2: a Higo State needs to do is like they need
- 4:19Speaker 2: to bump everything over, so like the center is no
- 4:22Speaker 2: longer considered the center, right like you you create a
- 4:25Speaker 2: new center basically off the tackle or at least off
- 4:29Speaker 2: the guard. And so have Penn State caught them a
- 4:31Speaker 2: few times like this, like as you said, like these
- 4:33Speaker 2: plays that they have utility right like unbalanced, you know,
- 4:38Speaker 2: Koltanniki for Penn State, like this is sort of his
- 4:41Speaker 2: like bread and butter to do these kind of like
- 4:44Speaker 2: trick plays for lack of a better word, let's say,
- 4:46Speaker 2: like unusual looks some work some didn't like when they
- 4:49Speaker 2: tried to run that, you know flea flick or double
- 4:53Speaker 2: reverse pass, and High State was just sitting in Tampa
- 4:55Speaker 2: and like it was dead to rights. But so they
- 4:58Speaker 2: gained some success with this obvious say this helped spur
- 5:00Speaker 2: a drive. It's sort of hard to sustain this stuff
- 5:02Speaker 2: because you can then adjust once you see it a
- 5:04Speaker 2: couple of times. But this is just something to look
- 5:07Speaker 2: for going forward. As I said, like Penn State also
- 5:10Speaker 2: had some success like getting out, you know, with twelve
- 5:12Speaker 2: personality at oate base and then like spread the tight
- 5:15Speaker 2: ends out and then throw wide receiver screens. You get
- 5:18Speaker 2: three over two. So using again like the offense being unbalanced,
- 5:23Speaker 2: even like whether literally unbalanced or like the numbers, like
- 5:26Speaker 2: putting seven guys to one side of the ball at
- 5:28Speaker 2: forty the other to force I Sate out of this
- 5:30Speaker 2: sort of balanced cover. Three looks all right.
- 5:34Speaker 1: One of the other things we've talked about with Matt
- 5:37Speaker 1: Patricia's defense this year is how teams are trying to
- 5:40Speaker 1: use motion to manipulate them, but how Matt Patricia sometimes
- 5:44Speaker 1: motion will trigger something in the Matt Patricia defense that
- 5:47Speaker 1: is something that the opponent doesn't mean to do. This
- 5:50Speaker 1: next one, this feels like this is probably a good
- 5:52Speaker 1: example of that.
- 5:53Speaker 2: Yeah, these are some of the things that Patricia's brought
- 5:56Speaker 2: with them. Nick Saban, I think we mentioned a few
- 5:58Speaker 2: weeks ago on game day, had had great segum on
- 6:00Speaker 2: Patricia's defense, and you know he talked about these auto
- 6:03Speaker 2: check blitzes, right, So, like what's happening here consistently is
- 6:06Speaker 2: like when Penn State would use this fast motion, A
- 6:09Speaker 2: lot of teams, including Ohio State, like to use this.
- 6:11Speaker 2: You know, you send the tight end quickly right before
- 6:13Speaker 2: the snap, try to create these split zone looks. Ohio
- 6:17Speaker 2: State kept blitzing this kind of motion, whether it's it's
- 6:20Speaker 2: from Caleb Downs here, saw it from the cornerbacks as well,
- 6:23Speaker 2: and you're just the thought being like you're generally not
- 6:26Speaker 2: going to get a threat back to that side of
- 6:29Speaker 2: the field away from the motion, and so you know
- 6:32Speaker 2: here like for instance, you could see Caleb Down's pointing
- 6:34Speaker 2: so high State's in cover one. So now the deep
- 6:36Speaker 2: defender becomes responsible for that tight end. You know, the
- 6:40Speaker 2: opposite side corner then has the inline tight end, and
- 6:43Speaker 2: you're just gaining a number. You're basically using how offenses
- 6:47Speaker 2: tend to use motion against them. So just one more
- 6:50Speaker 2: sort of wrinkle Patricia's brod that has helped limit a
- 6:54Speaker 2: potent run games.
- 6:56Speaker 1: All right, now we're gonna move on to the pass game.
- 6:58Speaker 1: And Penn State had a little bit of success here
- 7:01Speaker 1: and there in the past game. This first one is
- 7:03Speaker 1: soon for example, where they sort of found a hole
- 7:05Speaker 1: in his own What struck me about this, and I'm
- 7:07Speaker 1: sure this is not what you're gonna be talking about,
- 7:09Speaker 1: but what struck me about this was, man, Arvel Reese
- 7:12Speaker 1: is way downfield on this one. This is a ball
- 7:14Speaker 1: that Ethan Brunkenmeier sort of layered in nicely. But you
- 7:17Speaker 1: think about Rvel Reese being right around the line of
- 7:19Speaker 1: scrimmage and he is dropped way into coverage on this one.
- 7:22Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, which is what here's supposed to do? Right,
- 7:24Speaker 2: Like this is called a robot technique from the linebacker.
- 7:27Speaker 2: Like if you see play action and you bite down
- 7:30Speaker 2: on it, you basically turn and run. So you like robot.
- 7:33Speaker 2: It's an acronym for retracing your steps to state basically,
- 7:36Speaker 2: but you keep getting that depth. But you know high
- 7:38Speaker 2: State again, like see little little chinks in the armor.
- 7:42Speaker 2: If you will have the scheme and like every every
- 7:44Speaker 2: scheme has them right, and so like High State's running
- 7:46Speaker 2: a lot of Cover three, and particularly when they played
- 7:49Speaker 2: more of like just like a base spot drop cover three,
- 7:52Speaker 2: you can hit some of these like middle throws right
- 7:55Speaker 2: and so like especially here because Penn State motions to trips,
- 7:58Speaker 2: so you have three wide receivers. State doesn't bump the
- 8:01Speaker 2: cover three. What will give an example when they do
- 8:03Speaker 2: and the difference that makes. But so you end up
- 8:06Speaker 2: with both Caleb Downs and the backside boundary corner basically
- 8:09Speaker 2: just guarden air right, and so then your your down
- 8:12Speaker 2: bodies to the trip side of the field, and when
- 8:15Speaker 2: you're not carrying or matching routes down the scene, you
- 8:18Speaker 2: can tend to get these situations right where you know,
- 8:21Speaker 2: obviously Reese is trying to get back because he had
- 8:24Speaker 2: that you know, as we talked about reacted to the
- 8:26Speaker 2: play action. But if you know, you get guys running
- 8:28Speaker 2: on the seam like talked about Ohio State, as we said,
- 8:31Speaker 2: like offensively getting a ton of Cover three and like
- 8:34Speaker 2: hitting those steam routes or not. And obviously Penn State
- 8:36Speaker 2: tried to do the same against High State's cover three
- 8:38Speaker 2: on the play where Caleb Downs initially got called for
- 8:41Speaker 2: targeting and then that was waved off like that was open.
- 8:45Speaker 1: They just didn't.
- 8:45Speaker 2: Penn State just didn't get the ball there in time
- 8:47Speaker 2: or in an inaccurate throw. So the more that Ohio
- 8:51Speaker 2: State sort of just plays sort of base hot drop
- 8:54Speaker 2: cover three, which you know, we can talk about like
- 8:57Speaker 2: it's it's sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. It's it's
- 9:00Speaker 2: a little difficult I think at the moment to figure
- 9:02Speaker 2: out the rhyme or reason other than I think Patricia
- 9:06Speaker 2: is generally happy to like just play base cover three
- 9:10Speaker 2: unless you prove to him that you that you can
- 9:12Speaker 2: beat it, and then he'll start throwing in some variations
- 9:15Speaker 2: like we'll see.
- 9:17Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know we're going to get to one
- 9:19Speaker 1: of the variations here, But is this next you know,
- 9:22Speaker 1: the idea that you're going to sort of play bass
- 9:23Speaker 1: as much as you can, is that just sort of
- 9:26Speaker 1: why put stuff on film if you don't need to, like,
- 9:29Speaker 1: don't don't dig deeper into the bag than you need
- 9:31Speaker 1: to at this point in the season.
- 9:33Speaker 2: I think so, I think in this specific situation, yes,
- 9:35Speaker 2: I mean, I think you know, there's benefits of spot Drop's,
- 9:39Speaker 2: particularly in terms of playing the run. So if you're
- 9:42Speaker 2: playing a team that you're more concerned about their run
- 9:46Speaker 2: game or think that they are more run focused, right,
- 9:49Speaker 2: Like if you if you're freeing up your second level
- 9:52Speaker 2: defenders from having to carry or match routes like their
- 9:54Speaker 2: their eyes are now on the backfield, right, And so
- 9:57Speaker 2: you get you know, positives and benefit negatives to that
- 9:59Speaker 2: like everything else. But yeah, I also think that there's
- 10:03Speaker 2: a particula, like in this game, I kind of got
- 10:06Speaker 2: the feeling after a while that's like I'm just not
- 10:08Speaker 2: going to really like dig too deep on this one
- 10:10Speaker 2: to stop the Penn State offense. You know, we'll see
- 10:13Speaker 2: a few wrinkles here and there, but you know, it
- 10:16Speaker 2: sort of feels like keep keeping some things back until
- 10:19Speaker 2: we really need to, particularly against the pass like they
- 10:22Speaker 2: have have we talked about like sort of in the
- 10:25Speaker 2: bigger picture, like they want to be gapped out right.
- 10:27Speaker 2: They're playing a lot of single high coverage, so they
- 10:31Speaker 2: got eight man spacing against the run, and it's like,
- 10:34Speaker 2: you know, again, I think you have to prove to
- 10:37Speaker 2: Patricia that you can throw the ball consistently for him
- 10:40Speaker 2: to sort of dig deeper.
- 10:42Speaker 1: All right, So let's get into we got two more
- 10:44Speaker 1: for you here and this first one. This is one
- 10:47Speaker 1: we've talked about the pass rush being effective. We took
- 10:50Speaker 1: up the coverage being effective. This is kind of a
- 10:51Speaker 1: little bit of both, where coverage is there, there's no
- 10:54Speaker 1: one to go to, and then the pass rush gets
- 10:56Speaker 1: home exactly.
- 10:58Speaker 2: And so like, I don't want to leave the impression
- 10:59Speaker 2: that like all they're doing is you know, spot chop
- 11:02Speaker 2: cover three. We've obviously talked about that that's not the case,
- 11:05Speaker 2: but sometimes has been the case for how to state
- 11:08Speaker 2: in the past, you know, and under the Ryan Day tenure,
- 11:10Speaker 2: but you definitely see plenty of wrinkles both, you know,
- 11:14Speaker 2: within the split safety coverage stuff we've shown in previous
- 11:16Speaker 2: weeks and even here. So this is cover three, but
- 11:19Speaker 2: like this is more how you'd like to play cover
- 11:20Speaker 2: three to defend the pass against trips. Notably, this is
- 11:24Speaker 2: third long, so you're you're much more likely to get pass.
- 11:27Speaker 2: They're running what's called Cover three mabel, which is just
- 11:30Speaker 2: a way of saying they're going to push again, like
- 11:33Speaker 2: Nick Saban term, they're going to push the coverage to
- 11:35Speaker 2: the trips, so they're going to man up the backside.
- 11:38Speaker 2: So Davis and Xsbunoza or excuse me. Jermaine Matthews has
- 11:42Speaker 2: the backside single receiver Manda Man and then either Caleb
- 11:47Speaker 2: Downs or Sunny Styles de Penny, which way the back
- 11:49Speaker 2: releases would have him man demand, and then you're just
- 11:52Speaker 2: going to play cover three. But again everything's so push
- 11:55Speaker 2: as particularly at the second level, defenders pushed over, so
- 11:57Speaker 2: now you have a body for each receipt, and so
- 12:01Speaker 2: then as you said, nowhere to go with the football
- 12:03Speaker 2: and the pressure can get home. So there's there's certainly
- 12:07Speaker 2: like examples of them matching coverages. I think it's sort of,
- 12:10Speaker 2: as I said, down a distance dependent, opponent dependent, game
- 12:15Speaker 2: situation dependent.
- 12:17Speaker 1: And this last one they're bringing a lot more pressure here.
- 12:20Speaker 1: This is one where our velvetes gets the sack and
- 12:22Speaker 1: gets the sack very I mean, just absolutely torches his guy.
- 12:25Speaker 1: But you will also see in this one both outside
- 12:29Speaker 1: corners are also coming here. Matt Patricia does bring a
- 12:31Speaker 1: little to heat, a little bit of extra heat sometimes.
- 12:34Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like every game there's always, like you know,
- 12:36Speaker 2: we're just talking about saving things back, a wrinkle or
- 12:38Speaker 2: two that comes out something new. I talked about the
- 12:41Speaker 2: other week. How I've you know, compared to Jim Knowles's
- 12:44Speaker 2: tenure at O High State. Like matt Patricia has rarely
- 12:47Speaker 2: run Cover zero, so that's just man covers with no
- 12:50Speaker 2: deep defender. But he does it here. And it's an
- 12:53Speaker 2: interesting look, right because you it's very disguised. So we've
- 12:55Speaker 2: talked about the disguise from Patricia and you've got what
- 12:58Speaker 2: looks like Cover two. You got two split safeties here,
- 13:02Speaker 2: but as you said, like this actually at the snap,
- 13:05Speaker 2: Davis and nign Nosen's coming off the nub side away
- 13:09Speaker 2: from the trips, and then you have Jermae Matthews and
- 13:11Speaker 2: the slot blitzing as well. And then you got everyone
- 13:14Speaker 2: just playing man. So you got the you know, deep
- 13:17Speaker 2: safety to the near side has that tight end and
- 13:20Speaker 2: the nasty split. You got you know, Lorenzo Styles picking
- 13:25Speaker 2: up the slot receiver, Devin Sanchez has the outside receiver,
- 13:28Speaker 2: and then Downs has that tight end the inside trips receiver.
- 13:33Speaker 2: And so you know, unique pressure again like also you
- 13:37Speaker 2: can talk about like the individual pass rush from RVL
- 13:40Speaker 2: Reese here is fantastic. How he you know, swipes the
- 13:43Speaker 2: hands from the tackle and beats him around the edge.
- 13:46Speaker 2: You have your inside guys you know using it contained
- 13:48Speaker 2: technique and so great design. You know, as I said,
- 13:52Speaker 2: I think there's you know, plenty of these sort of
- 13:55Speaker 2: tricks in the bag, if you will, if they come
- 13:58Speaker 2: into a team who's having more success throwing or just
- 14:02Speaker 2: you know, moving the football generally when they get into
- 14:05Speaker 2: third down situations, because you know, he just hasn't brought
- 14:09Speaker 2: a ton of pressure, you know, even more than certainly
- 14:12Speaker 2: very rarely five, you know, even less six. But saw
- 14:15Speaker 2: a little bit in this game. Saw this here, he
- 14:17Speaker 2: ran a hot pressure which we've talked about before, like
- 14:19Speaker 2: a three deep two under and so, you know, just
- 14:23Speaker 2: just getting some some different looks. It certainly seems like
- 14:26Speaker 2: there's lots of potential tools in the toolbox.
- 14:30Speaker 1: And then this weekend they had to Purdue got a
- 14:32Speaker 1: chance to watch Purdue take on Michigan. Last week. The
- 14:35Speaker 1: produce offense, they moved the ball some, but they weren't
- 14:39Speaker 1: you know, there wasn't a great run threat. They didn't
- 14:41Speaker 1: throw the ball downfield much. It was just kind of
- 14:43Speaker 1: a lot of run the play clock way down, wait
- 14:46Speaker 1: till the headset shut off, and then hustle to the
- 14:49Speaker 1: line and snap it quickly and throw something quick before
- 14:52Speaker 1: the pass rush can get home. What's sort of the
- 14:55Speaker 1: counter to that for Ohio State, or is it just
- 14:58Speaker 1: kind of keep everything in front of you, you and
- 15:00Speaker 1: hope that they don't complete two five yard passes every
- 15:03Speaker 1: three downs.
- 15:05Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's going to be a lot
- 15:06Speaker 2: of that. I mean, I think Odam's a good coach.
- 15:08Speaker 2: I think they'll use try to use some of these
- 15:11Speaker 2: things we just talked about, right in terms of probably
- 15:14Speaker 2: quite a few screens, try to get the ball out
- 15:17Speaker 2: on the perimeter, try to use some unbalanced looks, you know,
- 15:21Speaker 2: test how much Ohio States, you know, can handle tempo communication.
- 15:26Speaker 2: But I think it's going to be a lot of
- 15:28Speaker 2: sort of trying to gain three and four yards at
- 15:31Speaker 2: a time.
- 15:32Speaker 1: All right, Well, we will be back next week to
- 15:35Speaker 1: talk with Ross once again about what the Ohios Date
- 15:38Speaker 1: offense was able to do in West Lafayette and what
- 15:40Speaker 1: if anything, the Purdue offense was able to do against
- 15:43Speaker 1: the Ohio State defense. And when he's back, we will
- 15:46Speaker 1: once again be sponsored by Jeffrubus of Columbus, the award
- 15:48Speaker 1: winning Upscale Steakhouse in downtown Columbus name one of the
- 15:51Speaker 1: top fifty steakhouses in America by Food Network. Just go
- 15:53Speaker 1: to Jeffrubuy dot com slash Columbus to check out the
- 15:56Speaker 1: menu and make a reservation today. That will do it
- 15:58Speaker 1: for today. Thank you guys all for joining us. Have
- 16:00Speaker 1: a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow